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There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that’s philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that’s science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy’s Law, sometimes offset in part by Brewster’s Factor: that’s engineering.

— Robert A. Heinlein The Number of the Beast (1980)

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Spirituality

More quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

“My uncle used to say, ‘Never pick up a stray kitten…unless you’ve already made up your mind to be owned by it.’”

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it’s better to laugh than cry.

I Will Fear No Evil (1970)

A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Time Enough for Love (1973)

If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.

The Door Into Summer (1957)

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Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.

Mircea Eliade Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1967)

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson

The superior man loves his soul; the inferior man loves his property.

Confucius

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert A. Heinlein (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.