Self awareness is NOT just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?

Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

Those who refuse to support and defend the state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be considered "murder" in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly weapons within city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or other misdemeanor.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

You don’t pay back, you pay forward.