The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
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 attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God while highlighting the absurdity of such faith.
Robert A. Heinlein's quote challenges the rationality of believing in a deity who embodies omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence simultaneously. By using humor and sarcasm, he suggests that accepting these attributes as coherent can lead one to be taken advantage of, implying that such belief is illogical or a financial scam, thus inviting deeper reflection on faith and reason.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of God and faith.
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
An armed society is a polite society.
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
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.
All human things Of dearest value hang on slender strings.
If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself.
Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
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