Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what you have instead of panicking and being shot in the tail. People who fight this way win more battles than do intentional heroes; a glory hound often throws away the lives of his mates as well as his own.
Robert A. HeinleinTake sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.
Robert A. HeinleinMy folks tried to make a preacher of me and missed by a narrow marginโฆ I would have made a good one if I hadnโt fallen into the fatal folly of reading anything I could lay hands on. With just a touch more self confidence and a liberal helping of ignorance I could have been a famous evangelist.
Robert A. HeinleinRemember though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp -provided it's loaded.
Robert A. HeinleinUnarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest.
Robert A. HeinleinThe country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degrees---its religious revivals were often hysterical in a fashion almost Dionysian.
Robert A. Heinlein