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.


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

Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

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...

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...

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...

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...