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There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory. ~~ Robert A. Heinlein

He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word -- such as grok which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word.......Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed; to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science;and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man. ~~ Robert A. Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land"

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. ~~ Robert A. Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"