“But what you’re talking about means giving up all that—just the noble primitive, simple and self-sufficient. He’s going to chop down a tree—who sold him the ax? He wants to shoot a deer—who made his gun?…There never was and there never could be a noble simple creature such as you described. He’d be an ignorant savage, with dirt on his skin and lice in his hair. He would work sixteen hours a day to stay alive at all. He’d sleep in a filthy hut on a dirt floor. And his point of view and his mental processes would be just two jumps above an animal.”

— Robert A. Heinlein , book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 6, “We don’t speak the same lingo”, pp. 73-74

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Do you have more details about the quote "But what you’re talking about means giving up all that—just the noble primitive, simple and self-sufficient. He’s going…" by Robert A. Heinlein?

Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

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“She told him she made a rule of never marrying bankers. The next day he sent flowers, and a note saying that he’d relinquished his profession.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter ii “Representations”, Section 2 (p. 479)
(1987), BOOK THREE: OUT OF THE EMPTY QUARTER

“He's the one
Who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

“I hope when he dies, he does become a tree. I hope he's in the middle of the wilderness and he's doing his tree thing. Whatever it is trees do. I know they do a lot of work with breezes. And wouldn't it be fantastic if while he was out there just enjoying his treeness, through the woods, a huge sweaty guy with an ax comes long? Sees him… [tree-chopping motions]. Chops him down, smash! Put a chain around him, drag him through the mud and the muck, throw him into a sawmill and grind him up. [Nuzzsaw noise] Then you pound him down into paper, and once he's paper, you print the Bible on him.”

Dane Cook (1972) American actor and comedian

Vicious Circle (2006)

“If your little savage were left to himself and be allowed to retain all his ignorance, he would in time join the infant’s reasoning to the grown man’s passion, he would strangle his father and sleep with his mother.”

Denis Diderot book Rameau's Nephew

Rameau's Nephew (1762)

“I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Man is as much a slave to his immediate surroundings now as he was when he lived in tree-huts. Give him the highest, the most exciting thoughts about man's place in the universe, the meaning of history; they can all be snuffed out in a moment if he wants his dinner, or feels irritated by a child squalling on a bus. He is bound by pettiness.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Two, World Without Values

“Why can't a man stand alone?
Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own?
His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation
They just weigh him down”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Why Can't A Man Stand Alone?
Song lyrics, All This Useless Beauty (1996)

“Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his words and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer is noble in his manner. Cowper renders him ill because he is slow in his movement, and elaborate in his style; Pope renders him ill because he is artificial both in his style and in his words; Chapman renders him ill because he is fantastic in his ideas; Mr. Newman renders him ill because he is odd in his words and ignoble in his manner.”

Matthew Arnold On Translating Homer

On Translating Homer, p. 336
Essays in Criticism (1865)

“But then, his revenge had been more direct. He’d hunted down the ones who’d killed his sister and nephew – those who’d survived his mother’s attack – and he’d made them wish they’d never been born with nerve endings.' (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

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