Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.
If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship.
Life is short, but the years are long.
I have never been able to see how a thirty-year old moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-year old genius.
"Peace" is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story prominence-unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it.
The ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for "art" that leaves him unmoved--if he does pay for it, the money has to be conned out of him, by taxes and such.
A man who marries at my age isn't taking a wife, he's indenturing a nurse.
Only a sadistic scoundrel-or a fool-tells the bald truth on social occasions.
Boats and ships are female because they are beautiful, lovable, expensive and unpredictable.
From somewhere, back in my youth, heard Prof say, 'Manuel, when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.' He had been teaching me something he himself did not understand very well—something in math—but had taught me something far more important, a basic principle.
Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination-- devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues -- which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.
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.
I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.
The commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.
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.
Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part...and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.
I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey.
Responsibility cannot be shared.
Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what you have instead of panicking and being shot in the tail. People who fight this way win more battles than do intentional heroes; a glory hound often throws away the lives of his mates as well as his own.
If an elderly respected expert in a given field tells you that something can be done he is almost certainly right. If an elderly respected expert in a given field tells you that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.
I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.
Please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or next you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step toward complete moral degradation.
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.
Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.
A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being 'frank'.
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