Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

If I had found out anything, it was that they could print it faster than I could study it.

I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble - you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step.

The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for---if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.

Self awareness is NOT just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke.

Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.

You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back...

When he kisses you he isn't doing anything else. You're his whole universe, and the moment is eternal because he doesn't have any plans and isn't going anywhere. Just kissing you ... it's overwhelming.

Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.

A zest for living must include a willingness to die.

Are you trying to tell all of us we have a bad signal-to-noise ratio?

It would take centuries and he must grow and grow and grow, but he was in no hurry--he grokked that Eternity and the ever-beautifully-changing Now were identical.

But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can make such behavior anything but pathological.

The killer looked up as the bullet hit him. He looked as if he were puzzled by some strange occurence, being too freshly dead to be aware of it.

A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.

One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die ...and accepts his sentence undismayed.

There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can't think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don't

Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.

But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it.

Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!

The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it.

Most women are damn fools and children. But they've got more range than we've got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better - and the vile ones are viler, for that matter.

But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in’ proud to use the title. I won’t touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees.

In a mature society, 'civil servant' is semantically equal to 'civil master.'

If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

The only thing privacy laws accomplish is making the bugs smaller.

Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.

Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.

Death is the lot of us all, and the only way that the human race has ever conquered death is by treating it with contempt. By living every golden minute as if one had all Eternity.

In a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem.

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but--if you will pardon my saying so--all wrong.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.

Ninety percent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business.

Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.

From the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which over crowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness.

Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws - always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up.

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure --will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage --and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.

Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.

There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat.

Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise.

Being privileged to work hard for long hours at something you think is worth doing is the best kind of play.