"Now here we have another emotional symbol β wrought with exquisite craftsmanship, but we won't go into that, yet. Ben, for almost three thousand years or longer, architects have designed buildings with columns shaped as female figures β it got to be such a habit that they did it as casually as a small boy steps on an ant. After all those centuries it took Rodin to see that this was work too heavy for a girl. But he didn't simply say, 'Look, you jerks, if you must design this way, make it a brawny male figure.' No, he showed itβ¦ and generalized the symbol. Here is this poor little caryatid who has tried β and failed, fallen under the load. She's a good girl β look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, but not blaming anyone else, not even the godsβ¦ and still trying to shoulder her load, after she's crumpled under it. But she's more than good art denouncing some very bad art; she's a symbol for every woman who has ever tried to shoulder a load that was too heavy for her β over half the female population of this planet, living and dead, I would guess. But not alone women β this symbol is sexless. It means every man and every woman who ever lived who sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, whose courage wasn't even noticed until they crumpled under their loads. It's courage, Ben, and victory."
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Ch. 30 (UC)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land
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Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger In a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein; it was later republished in a longer "Uncut" edition in 1991. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet
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