Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.

I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.

Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?

If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity.

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.

Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.

Being sorry won't get you into heaven. Get happy, son. Get that old spring into your step and stay on your toes.

I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.

Marriage is a psychological condition, not a civil contract and a license. Once a marriage is dead, it is dead, and it begins to stink faster than a dead fish.

Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago.

Yes, Boss?' Dorcas, the last twenty or thirty years I've been a worthless, no-good parasite.' She yawned again. 'Everybody knows that.' Nevermind the flattery. There comes a time in every man's life when he has to stop being sensible--a time to stand up and be counted--strike a blow for liberty--smite the wicked.' Ummm...' So quit yawning, the time has come.' She glanced down. 'Maybe I had better get dressed.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

A human being has no natural rights of any nature.

And suddenly I knew I was people and could not stop laughing.

The stars incline, but do not impel.

The meek shall inherit the earth - a 6 foot plot above them.

The mind's ability to rationalize it's own shortcomings is unlimited; I am no exception.

The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be - instead of the tawdry, lousy fouled-up mess it is.

The commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

Those who refuse to support and defend the state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be considered "murder" in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly weapons within city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or other misdemeanor.

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured.

We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in self-protection

Most people who sneer at technology would starve to death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.

Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs - sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes - but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?)

The moral difference between a soldier and a civilian is that the soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member. The civilian does not.

There ought not to be anything in the whole universe that man can't poke his nose into-that's the way we're built and I assume that there's some reason for that.

If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!

On two subjects the overwhelming majority of people regarded their own opinions as Absolute Truth, and sincerely believed that anyone who disagreed with them was immoral, outrageous, sinful, sacrilegious, offensive, intolerable, stupid, illogical, treasonable, actionable, against the public interest, ridiculous, and obscene. The two subjects were (of course) sex and religion.

I'm always suspicious of disinterested interest.

Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on ... as long as the women and children are saved.

Patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.

If I don’t start having service I’m going to swap you all for a dog and shoot the dog.

Once there was a race, quite unlike the human race - quite. I have no way of describing to you what they looked like or how they lived, but they had one characteristic you can understand: they were creative. The creating and enjoying of works of art was their occupation and their reason for being.

Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.

Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it.

Specialisation is for insects!

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.

Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.