| Always store beer in a dark place. |
By the data to date, there is only one animal
in the Galaxy dangerous to man -- man himself. So he must supply his
own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. |
| Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that
stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. |
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty
until proved innocent. |
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you
what can't be done, and why. Then do it. |
Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough
to let you make your second shot perfect. |
| There is no conclusive evidence of life after
death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you
will know. So why fret about it? |
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is
not science; it is opinion. |
| It has long been known that one horse can run
faster than another -- but which one? Differences are crucial. |
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But
an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get
half the kicking around she deserved. |
| Delusions are often functional. A mother's
opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera
ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth. |
Most "scientists" are
bottle washers and button sorters. |
| A "pacifist male" is a contradiction
in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific;
they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the
Jolly Roger. |
Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's
breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy. |
| A generation which ignores history has no past
-- and no future. |
A poet who reads his verse in public may have
other nasty habits. |
| What a wonderful world it is that has girls
in it! |
Small change can often be found under seat
cushions. |
| History does not record anywhere at any time
a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people
not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like
dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on
it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. |
It's amazing
how much "mature wisdom" resembles
being too tired. |
| If you don't like yourself, you can't like
other people. |
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. |
| A motion to adjourn is always in order. |
No state
has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the
long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it." Later
on, this custom declined. So did Rome. |
| Of all the strange "crimes" that
human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is
the most amazing -- with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting
it out for second and third place. |
Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule
or within budget. |
| It is better to copulate than never. |
All societies
are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All
else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which
can -- and must -- be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function.
As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is
possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect
society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is
not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed
idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly -- and no doubt will
keep on trying. |
| All men are created unequal. |
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers
work almost as well. |
A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills
from hate. |
There is only one way to console a widow.
But remember the risk. |
| When the need arises -- and it does -- you
must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out -- that doesn't
make it nicer, it makes it worse. |
Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor
of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. |
It may be better to be a live jackal than
a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually
easier. |
One man's theology is another man's belly
laugh. |
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick
to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary. |
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up
a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals
of a spoiled child. |
Never
appeal to a man's "better nature".
He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. |
Little girls, like butterflies, need no
excuse. |
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom.
Don't ever count on having both at once. |
Avoid making irrevocable decisions while
tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think
ahead! |
Place your clothes and weapons where you
can find them in the dark. |
An elephant: A mouse built to government
specifications. |
| Throughout
history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit
this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work
of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned,
and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this
tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven
out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This
is known as "bad luck". |
In a mature
society, "civil servant" is
semantically equal to "civil master". |
| When a place gets crowded enough to require
ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The
best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. |
A woman is not property, and husbands who
think otherwise are living in a dreamworld. |
| The second best thing about space travel is
that distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical,
and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people,
since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose
and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent
man who fights only when he must -- never for sport. |
A zygote is a gamete's way of producing
more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe. |
| 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.
But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In
declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers'
purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of
men) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race --
i.e., his own self-hatred. In the case of "Naturists" such
self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred
is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the
most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and
H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I
like being part of a race made up of men and women -- it strikes me as
a fine arrangement and perfectly "natural". Believe it or not,
there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old
Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling of
Nature". |
"No man is an island--" Much as we
may feel and act as individuals, our race is a single organism, always
growing and branching -- which must be pruned regularly to be healthy.
This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any
organism which grows without limit always dies in it's own poisons. The
only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after
birth. Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these
methods -- killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of "He's
dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be." But this
may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be
killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than
never to have lived at all. They may be right. But I don't have to like
it -- and I don't. |
Democracy is based on the assumption that
a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something. |
Autocracy is based on the assumption that
one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too.
Who decides? |
| 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." |
What are
the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful
thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what
the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" --
what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always
into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! |
| Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through
education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't
help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out
automatically and without pity. |
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent
-- it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of
believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have
a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills. |
Courage is the complement of fear. A man
who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.) |
The two
highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty".
Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there
fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that
society. It is doomed. |
| People who go broke in a big way never miss
any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy half a slug who must tighten
his belt. |
The truth of a proposition has nothing to
do with its credibility. And vice versa. |
| Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is
not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to
wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. |
Moving parts
in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics
and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together.
Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated
deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and
scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they
thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. |
| A human being should be able to change a diaper,
plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write
a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying,
take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze
a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. |
The more you love, the more you can love --
and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you
can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority
who are decent and just. |
| If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine
your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want
to do it, wallow in it! |
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception,
the root of all evil. |
| The most preposterous notion that H. 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 by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive
this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to
bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive
industry in all history. |
The second most preposterous notion is that
copulation is inherently sinful. |
Writing is not necessarily something to
be ashamed of -- but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. |
$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded
quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 -- by
which time it will be worth nothing. |
| Dear, don't bore him with trivia or burden
him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never
to tell him anything he does not need to know. |
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. |
| Everybody lies about sex. |
If men were
the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists
could not have invented the amazing nonsense called "behaviorist psychology." So
they are wrong from scratch -- as clever and as wrong as phlogiston
chemists. |
The
shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I
prefer the Real McCoy -- a pregnant woman. |
If the universe has any purpose more important
than topping a woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help,
I've never heard of it. |
Thou shalt remember the Eleventh Commandment
and keep it Wholly. |
A touchstone
to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual" -- find
out how he feels about astrology. |
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of
the taxed. |
There is
no such thing as "social gambling." Either
you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it -- or you're
a sucker. If you don't like this choice -- don't gamble. |
When the ship lifts, all bills are paid.
No regrets. |
The first time I was a drill instructor I was
too inexperienced for the job -- the things I taught those lads must
have got some of them killed. War is too serious a matter to be taught
by the inexperienced. |
A competent and self-confident person is
incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom
of neurotic insecurity. |
Money is the sincerest of all flattery.
Women love to be flattered. So do men. |
You live and learn. Or you don't live long. |
Whenever
women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably
wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they
can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand
special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle
merely for equality. For women, "equality" is
a disaster. |
Peace is an extension of war by political
means. Plenty of elbowroom is pleasanter -- and much safer. |
One man's "magic" is another man's
engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. |
| The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must --" designates
something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is
a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself.
These small-change cliches and others like them, when read correctly,
are reliable channel markers. |
Do not handicap your children by making
their lives easy. |
Rub her feet. |
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority
who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you
do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn
to wait. |
| Never crowd youngsters about their private
affairs -- sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends
all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy.
Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes -- but that's their business, not yours.
(You made your own mistakes, did you not?) |
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. |
Always tell her she is beautiful, especially
if she is not. |
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 to vote against. By this
rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult
some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice.
Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such
is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that
truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires. |
| Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage;
Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household
budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. |
Those who
refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by
that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined
as "murder" in a legalistic
sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly
weapons inside city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or "Endangering
bystanders," or other such misdemeanor. However, the state may reasonably
place a closed season on these exotic asocial animals whenever they are
in danger of becoming extinct. An authentic buck pacifist has rarely
been seen off Earth, and it is doubtful that any have survived the trouble
there . . regrettable, as they had the biggest mouths and the smallest
brains of any of the primates. The small-mouthed variety of anarchist
has spread through the Galaxy at the very wave front of the Diaspora;
there is no need to protect them. But they often shoot back. |
Another ingredient for a happy marriage:
Budget the luxuries first! |
And still another -- See to it she has her
own desk -- then keep your hands off it! |
And another -- In a family argument, if
it turns out you are right -- apologize at once! |
"God split himself in a myriad parts that
he might have friends." This may not be true, but it sounds good
-- and is no sillier than any other theology. |
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation
of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods. |
Does history record any case in which the
majority was right? |
When the fox gnaws -- smile! |
A "critic" is
a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the
work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - - he
hates all creative people equally. |
Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his
honor, make him pay cash. |
Never frighten a little man. He'll kill
you. |
Only a sadistic scoundrel -- or a fool --
tells the bald truth on social occasions. |
This sad little lizard told me that he was
a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast
of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs
nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always
in short supply. |
In handling a stinging insect, move very
slowly. |
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. |
| The difference between science and the fuzzy
subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects
merely require scholarship. |
Copulation
is spiritual in essence -- or it is merely friendly exercise. On second
thought, strike out "merely." Copulation
is not "merely" -- even when it is just a happy pastime for
two strangers. But copulation at its spiritual best is so much more than
physical coupling that it is different in kind as well as in degree.
The saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is "wrong" or "sinful" or
even that it can't lead to progeny -- but that it is more difficult to
reach through it this spiritual union. Not impossible -- but the cards
are stacked against it. But -- most sorrowfully -- many people never
achieve spiritual sharing even with the help of male-female advantage;
they are condemned to wander through life alone. |
| Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby
experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns
to use sight, hearing, taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep
your children short of pocket money -- but long on hugs. |
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. |
The greatest productive force is human selfishness. |
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you
shoot at tax collectors -- and miss. |
| The profession of shaman has many advantages.
It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary,
sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities
not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been
given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind
can seriously be interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary;
it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any
other con man. But it's lovely work if you can stomach it. |
A whore should be judged by the same criteria
as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists,
lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally
competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is
higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And
enormously higher than that of professors. |
| Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic;
this doubles your effective lifetime -- and thereby gives time to enjoy
butterflies and kittens and rainbows. |
Expertise in one field does not carry over
into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field
of knowledge the more likely they are to think so. |
Never try to outstubborn a cat. |
Tilting at windmills hurts you more than
the windmills. |
Yield to temptation; it may not pass your
way again. |
Waking a person unnecessarily should not
be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is. |
"Go to hell!" or
other insult direct is all the answer a snoopy question rates. |
The correct
way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but --" is to
place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force
in supplying such moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary
pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. |
| A man does not insist on physical beauty in
a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she
is beautiful -- he just hadn't noticed it at first. |
A skunk is
better company than a person who prides himself on being "frank." |
"All's fair in love and war" --
what a contemptible lie. |
Beware of
the "Black Swan" fallacy.
Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out
of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If
you fail to remember this, it can trip you -- with perfect logic. The
designers of the earliest computers called this the "Gigo Law," i.e., "Garbage
in, garbage out." |
Inductive logic is much more difficult --
but can produce new truths. |
A "practical joker" deserves
applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right.
For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out
on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. |
Natural laws have no pity. |
On the planet
Tranquille around KM849 (G-O) lives a little animal known as a "knafn." It
is herbivorous and has no natural enemies and is easily approached
and may be petted -- sort of a six-legged puppy with scales. Stroking
it is very pleasant; it wiggles its pleasure and broadcasts euphoria
in some band that humans can detect. It's worth the trip. Someday some
bright boy will figure out how to record this broadcast, then some
smart boy will see commercial angles -- and not long after that it
will be regulated and taxed. In the meantime I have faked that name
and catalog number; it is several thousand light-years off in another
direction. Selfish of me-- |
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy
to go fly a kite. |
Take care of the cojones and the frijoles
will take care of themselves. Try to have getaway money -- but don't
be frantic about it. |
If "everybody knows" such-and-such,
then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one. |
Political tags -- such as royalist, communist,
democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are
never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who
want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former
are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the
greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking
in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. |
| All cats are not gray after midnight. Endless
variety-- |
Sin lies only
in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are
invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid.) |
Being generous is inborn; being altruistic
is a learned perversity. No resemblance-- |
It is impossible for a man to love his wife
wholeheartedly without loving all women somewhat. I suppose that the
converse must be true of women. |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical
as readily as by being too trusting. |
Formal courtesy between husband and wife
is even more important than it is between strangers. |
Anything free is worth what you pay for
it. |
Don't store garlic near other victuals. |
Climate is what we expect, weather is what
we get. |
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament
-- it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance
and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out
the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome. |
| Do not confuse "duty" with what other
people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you
owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily.
Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant
willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you,
and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to
deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a
few minutes of your time, please -- this won't take long." Time
is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few.
If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests,
they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up
100 percent of your time -- and squawk for more! So learn to say No --
and be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time
to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time
for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave
none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor
for a friend, or even for a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't
do it because it is "expected" of you.) |
"I came, I saw, she conquered." (The
original Latin seems to have been garbled.) |
A committee is a life form with six or more
legs and no brain. |
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too
many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily
does this to himself. |
Don't try to have the last word. You might
get it. |
