{
  "type": "quote",
  "site": {
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    "language": "en",
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  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/if-you-wanted",
  "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/if-you-wanted.json",
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  "id": "6c7f4145-482d-494e-803a-26f8b1baeaad",
  "slug": "if-you-wanted",
  "text": "\"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—'older and wiser heads,' as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be.\"",
  "language": "en",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert A. Heinlein",
    "slug": "robert-a-heinlein",
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  },
  "book": {
    "title": "Starship Troopers",
    "slug": "starship-troopers",
    "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers"
  },
  "character": null,
  "chapter": null,
  "chapter_parent": null,
  "page": 63,
  "verified": false,
  "original": null,
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  "topics": [
    {
      "name": "war",
      "slug": "war",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war"
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "Wikiquote",
    "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Chapter_5",
    "license": {
      "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
      "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
    }
  },
  "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:57",
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    {
      "id": "e1ba1669-d999-487a-8624-ab8497179980",
      "slug": "basic-truths-cannot",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/basic-truths-cannot",
      "text": "Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them. This is immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "truth",
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      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Lt._Col._Jean_V._Dubois_(Ret.)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
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      },
      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:58"
    },
    {
      "id": "dbd80a02-e534-4077-803c-07e35e3685b2",
      "slug": "if-it-has",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/if-it-has",
      "text": "If it has to be done, a man — a real man — shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it.",
      "language": "en",
      "character": null,
      "chapter": null,
      "chapter_parent": null,
      "page": null,
      "verified": false,
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      "other_languages": [],
      "topics": [
        {
          "name": "responsibility",
          "slug": "responsibility",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility"
        },
        {
          "name": "masculinity",
          "slug": "masculinity",
          "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/masculinity"
        }
      ],
      "source": {
        "name": "Wikiquote",
        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Juan_Rico_(or_Johnnie_Rico)",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
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      "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:58"
    },
    {
      "id": "884298e0-6b85-47f3-b7dc-6b8fee11d53e",
      "slug": "i-do-not",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/i-do-not",
      "text": "I do not understand objections to 'cruel and unusual' punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose; his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment - and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism?\"",
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      "page": 115,
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      "topics": [
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          "name": "punishment",
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      "source": {
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        "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Chapter_8",
        "license": {
          "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
          "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
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