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161 " But, Jill, if a thing is sinful on Sunday, it is sinful on Friday—at least it groks that way to an outsider, myself—or perhaps to a man from Mars. "
― Robert A. Heinlein , Stranger in a Strange Land
162 " Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. "
163 " My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. "
164 " Democracy’s worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents—a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect? "
165 " There’s precious little choice.” “There’s always a choice! This one is a choice between ‘bad’ and ‘worse—’which is a difference much more poignant than that between ‘good’ and ‘better. "
166 " Congratulations! A desire not to butt into other people’s business is eighty percent of all human wisdom.” “You "
167 " Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise. "
168 " You know the classification of cultures into ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian. "
169 " Man is the animal who laughs, "
170 " this has more aspects than a cat has hair. "
171 " Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness . . . the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions. But the utter scoundrel and the perfect saint merely make the same choices on a larger scale. They still pick what pleases them. "
172 " Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a 'good. "
173 " Any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly. "
174 " What was “grokking”? He had been using the word for a week—and he didn’t grok it. "
175 " 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. Its worst fault is that its leaders reflect their constituents—a "
176 " There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was— “Man is the animal who laughs,” Jubal answered. "
177 " I told you when you hired him that—” “When I hired him?” “Don’t interrupt. —that any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly. "
178 " I’m not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting. "
179 " One damn sure thing!—he wasn’t going to let them be rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted, but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way. "
180 " But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any “maternal” in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn’t they? "