Great Throughts Treasury

"Certain feet were made for stepping on in order to improve the breed, promote the general welfare and minimize the ancient insolence of office.."

"Certain types of loudmouthism should be a capital offense among decent people."

"Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet you can't win."

"Cheops Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget."

"Children seldom are able to realize that death will come to them personally. One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die... and accepts his sentence undismayed."

"Chuck had a theory that women were closely related to machinery, both utterly unpredictable by logic. He drew graphs on the table top in beer to prove his thesis."

"Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution."

"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."

"Civilians are like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy."

"Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get."

"Come Judgment Day, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along."

"Consider the black widow spider. It's a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent-leather finish and its red hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight."

"Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth."

"Contrary to some opinions, it is better to be a dead hero than a live louse. Dying is messy and inconvenient but even a louse dies someday no matter what he will do to stay alive and he is forever having to explain his choice."

"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."

"Correct morality can only be derived from what man is ? not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be."

"Correct or not, he felt himself to be a useless pensioner, an impotent object of charity."

"Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)"

"Criminals are never materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless. Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat."

"Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them. From an anthropologist's view, 'justice' is a search for workable customs."

"Customs, morals?is there a difference? Woman, do you realize what you are doing? Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe?and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every fourth-rate conformist in this frightened land! Why don?t you go whole hog? Get him a brief case and make him carry it wherever he goes?make him feel shame if he doesn?t have it."

"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."

"Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem."

"Damnit! Nationalism should stop at the stratosphere!"

"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."

"Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation. That?s a law of nature, to be known henceforth as ?Harshaw?s Law."

"Daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation, regardless of the amount."

"Death is an old friend; I know him well. I lived with him, ate with him, slept with him; to meet him again does not frighten me?death is as necessary as birth, as happy in its own way."

"Death isn't funny. Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us ? us humans ? death is so sad that we must laugh at it."

"Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries ? but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses...in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land."

"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."

"Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is-- so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group."

"Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst faults 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?"

"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 low level, but what can you expect?"

"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?"

"Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents."

"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 to 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 a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is expected of you.)"

"Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead? but first get permit."

"Do you know the ancient Chinese ideogram for 'trouble'? It's 'Two women under one roof.'"

"Do you know your Bible?' 'Uh, not very well.' 'It merits study, it contains very practical advice for most emergencies."

"Do you seriously expect to start a rebellion with picayune stuff like that? It?s not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions, below the logical level. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn?t have to be a prejudice about an important matter either."

"Does history record any case in which the majority was right?"

"Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia - the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death...before they breed more hemophiliacs."

"Doing something constructive at once is better than figuring out the best thing to do hours later."

"Don' ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events."

"Don?t interrupt. I can make a winged horse that will look just like the pictures in the fairy stories. If you want to pay for it; we?ll make it ? we?re in business. But it won?t be able to fly."

"Don?t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it?s always wrong and she doesn?t mean the rest."

"Don?t you know about sergeants?"

"Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-- live or die-- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it-- 'Thou art God!'"

"Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough girls and boys to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian."