The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

by Robert A. Heinlein

Mind you, Mike had been awake a year—just how long I can’t say, nor could he as he had no recollection of waking up; he had not been programmed to bank memory of such event. Do you remember own birth?

Name a gift. Then speak my name. If it’s bread-and-honey, I own a hive.”

When a man dies, doesn’t shock me too much; we get death sentences day we are born.

revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice. It depends on correct organization and, above all, on communications. Then, at the proper moment in history, they strike. Correctly organized and properly timed it is a bloodless coup. Done clumsily or prematurely and the result is civil war, mob violence, purges, terror.

“As to basic structure, a revolution starts as a conspiracy; therefore structure is small, secret, and organized as to minimize damage by betrayal—since there always are betrayals. One solution is the cell system and so far nothing better has been invented.

Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?”

A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.

But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.”

In terms of morals there is no such thing as ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”