Robert Heinlein: From the Notebooks Of Lazarus Long

This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limits always dies in its own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth.

Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods -- killing makes me queasy, even when its a case of "He's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be."

But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right.

But I don't have to like it -- and I don't.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare -- most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "back-seat driver syndrome."

What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the FACTS? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"

-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? you pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue.

Get the facts!

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent -- it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these Divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! you may possibly save yourself but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.

At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated, deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, giver orders, cooperate. act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.

The more you love, the more you CAN love -- and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how MANY you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of wrongdoing -- and you don't have to go home in the cold. But it's LONELY.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out the self-deception. Then if you still want to do it -- wallow in it!

The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.

The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

A hundred dollars paced at seven percent interest compounded quarterly for two hundred years will increase to more than a hundred million dollars -- by which time it will be worth nothing.

Dear, don't bore him with trivia nor burned him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never to tell him anything that he does not need to know.

Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.

Everybody lies about sex.

If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called "behaviorist psychology." So they are wrong from scratch -- as clever and as wrong as phlogiston chemists.

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy -- a pregnant woman.

If the universe has any purpose more important than topping a woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help, I've never heard of it.

Thou shalt remember the Eleventh Commandment and keep it Wholly.

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual" -- find out how he feels about astrology.

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

There is no such thing as "social gambling." Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it -- or you are a sucker. If you don't like this choice, don't gamble.

When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets.

The first time I was a drill instructor I was too inexperienced for the job -- the things I taught those lads must have got some of them killed. War is too serious a matter to be taught by the inexperienced.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.

You live and learn. Or you don't live long.

Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. what they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster.

Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasenter -- and much safer.

One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.

"Supernatural" is a null word.

The phrase "we (I)(you) simply must -- " designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning.

"Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change cliches and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.