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From men motivated by moral certitude, history teaches, no lasting good ever comes.

Joseph Heller

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Joseph Heller
Age: 76 †
Born: 1923
Born: May 1
Died: 1999
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Lasting
Teach
Moral
History
Comes
Ever
Certitude
Good
Teaches
Men
Motivated

More quotes by Joseph Heller

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History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.
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Rise above principal and do what's right.
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When people disagreed with him he urged them to be objective.
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I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I'm immense. I'm a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I'm a bona fide supraman.
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Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
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When I grow up I want to be a little boy.
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I think that maybe inside any business, there is someone slowly going crazy
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Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.
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Now you've given them hope, and they're unhappy. So the blame is all yours.
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Well, he died. You don't get any older than that.
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What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.
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You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.
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where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
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The promises of maniacs, like those of women, are not safely relied upon.
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Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?
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If God was dead, how could I feel this bad?
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The body stores the trauma of our lives in muscular rigidity, thereby keeping us stuck in the past. When we release the tension in the body and align ourselves with gravity, we take a new stand in life. This allows us to be at ease with ourselves and in harmony in our relationship to others and to our planet.
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It's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise...-Bob Slocum
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There is no disappointment so numbing...as someone no better than you achieving more.
Joseph Heller
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It is the anonymous they, the enigmatic they who are in charge. Who is they? I don't know. Nobody knows. Not even they themselves.
Joseph Heller