Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

"No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain."

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

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

"If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it."

"But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil."

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

"Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution."

"Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other."

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

"If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it."

"But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees."

"A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom."