Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

The country and culture commonly known as “America” had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian;...

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.

I’m always suspicious of disinterested interest.

All those religions–they contradict each other on every point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people to be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying.

My old man says when it’s time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.

A desire not to butt into other people’s business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.

He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger’s tail was dangerous,...

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in ‘measurements’ when he did not know what he...

But one way or another competing and weeding takes place . . . or a race goes downhill.

One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.

Limiting the freedom of news ‘just a little bit’ is in the same category with the classic example ‘a little bit pregnant.

It’s a long story. Want a refill?””No, let’s start the steak. Where’s the button?””Right here.””Well, push it.””Me? You offered to cook.””Ben Caxton, I will lie here and starve before I will get up to push...

I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not

Could dump two Chinee down in one of our maria and they would get rich selling rocks to each other while raising twelve kids. Then a Hindu would sell retail stuff he got from them...

Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy – in fact, they are almost...

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.

I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it’s the only thing to make it stop hurting.

Do you know your Bible?”Uh, not very well.”It merits study, it contains very practical advice for most emergencies.

Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.

Butterflies are not insects,’ Captain John Sterling said soberly. ‘They are self-propelled flowers.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

Remind me,” Jubal said to her, “to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to tthe unecessary and unhealthy...

Customs, morals–is there a difference?

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want...

I don’t know Who is cranking; I’m pleased He doesn’t stop.

Once can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.

The most preposterous notion that Homo 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...

A paradox may be paradoctored.

Never try to out-stubborn a cat.

The golden sunshine of Italy congealed into tears. Here’s to alcoholic brotherhood … much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort.

May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.

Property is not the natural and obvious and inevitable concept that most people think it is.

Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in...

There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . ....

Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From an anthropologist’s view, ‘justice’ is a search for workable...

Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you’re ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don’t need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to...

I told you that ‘juvenile delinquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty.’ But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge...

But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in...

A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

I’ve never been able to understand ‘faith’ myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones – by faith...

The coldest depth of Hell is reserved for people who abandon kittens.

There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted – but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

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