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.]

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.

Support for the arts — merde! A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!

Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it’s eight times as good as any other method.

The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for—if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.

Abstract design is all right—for wallpaper or linoleum. But art is the process of evoking pity or terror, which is not abstract at all but very human.

The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge . . . and stronger.

I’m too much old-timer to be rude to a woman no matter what – they have so much of what we have none of.

Cheops’ Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.

Then I glanced at the ring on my finger.The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?I felt a headache coming...

His older self had taught his younger self a language which the older self knew because the younger self, after being taught, grew up to be the older self and was, therefore, capable of teaching.

Civilians are like beans; you buy ’em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.But you can’t buy fighting spirit.

Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.

Anything which is physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo of small minds.

backseat driver” syndrome.

Democracy can’t work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that’s all there is– so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is...

Death isn’t funny.” “Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us — us humans — death is so sad that we must laugh at it.

Because the world has gone nutty and art always paints the spirit of its times