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There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who love Nature while deploring the artificialities with which Man has spoiled Nature.' The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of Nature : but beavers and their dams are.

Robert A. Heinlein

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Robert A. Heinlein
Age: 80 †
Born: 1907
Born: July 7
Died: 1988
Died: May 8
Essayist
Literary Critic
Naval Officer
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Science Writer
Screenwriter
Stonemason
Writer
Butler
Missouri
Robert Anson Heinlein
Anson MacDonald
Lyle Monroe
John Riverside
Caleb Saunders
Simon York
Nature
Minds
Dams
Part
Lies
Artifacts
Mind
Choice
Imply
Men
Animal
Contradictions
Love
Choices
Spoiled
People
Lying
Contradiction
Funny
Hidden
Artificiality
Words
Obvious
Beavers

More quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

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With eternity to draw on there could be no reason for hurrying - 'hurry' was not a concept in Martian.
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Democracy can survive anything except Democrats
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Teaching causes people to go into situations from which they cannot escape, except by thinking. Do not handicap children by making their lives easy.
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To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.
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Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
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Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
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Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
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One man's 'magic' is another man's engineering. 'Supernatural' is a null word.
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An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
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Never pick up a stray kitten . . . unless you've already made up your mind to be owned by it.
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It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.
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How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show - it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
Robert A. Heinlein
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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.
Robert A. Heinlein
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...more than six people cannot agree on anything, three is better and one is perfect for a job that one can do. This is why parliamentary bodies all through history, when they accomplished anything, owed it to a few strong men who dominated the rest.
Robert A. Heinlein
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Are you trying to tell all of us we have a bad signal-to-noise ratio?
Robert A. Heinlein
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Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.
Robert A. Heinlein
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A boy who gets a C- in 'Appreciation of Television' can't be all bad.
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In Wilson's scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality.
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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 “backseat driver” syndrome.
Robert A. Heinlein
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An armed man need not fight.
Robert A. Heinlein