Top 100 Robert Heinlein Sayings
#1. And I repeat: if there is anything that can divert the land of my birth from its current stampede into the Stone Age, it is the widespread dissemination of the thoughts and perceptions that Robert Heinlein has been selling as entertainment since 1939.
Spider Robinson
#2. Robert Heinlein says in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel that the only things worth studying are history, languages, and science. Actually, he adds maths, but honestly they left out the mathematical part of my brain.
Jo Walton
#3. I loved reading all kinds of books, but I particularly loved books like 'Red Planet' by Robert Heinlein, which very few people read anymore but is a wonderful science fiction story.
Rebecca Stead
#4. Science fiction is a literary field crowded with strong opinions, and no SF novelist delivered himself more memorably of his views - on politics, sexuality, religion, and many other contentious topics - than Robert Heinlein.
Paul Di Filippo
#5. the strategic situation foreseen by Robert Heinlein in the death dust story was like "a duel in a vestibule with flamethrowers," anticipating mutual assured destruction and its acronym quite nicely. Tolstoy famously
Gregory Benford
#6. The earliest depiction of libertarian eugenics may have appeared in a science fiction novel, Robert Heinlein's 1942 tale 'Beyond This Horizon.'
Gregory Benford
#7. It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized ... The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten.
Larry Niven
#8. One damn sure thing! - he wasn't going to let them be rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted, but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way.
Robert A. Heinlein
#10. Harshaw concluded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels
Robert A. Heinlein
#11. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it ... which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'.
Robert A. Heinlein
#12. I've never been able to understand 'faith' myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones - by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether universe or a smaller one.
Robert A. Heinlein
#13. My old man says when it's time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.
Robert A. Heinlein
#14. You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein
#17. Because the world has gone nutty and art always paints the spirit of its times
Robert A. Heinlein
#18. I never do anything I don't want to. Nor does anyone, but in my case I know it.
Robert A. Heinlein
#19. A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the lord in vain- then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?
Robert A. Heinlein
#20. The saddest thing about ephemerals was that their little lives rarely held time enough for love.
Robert A. Heinlein
#21. A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.
Robert A. Heinlein
#22. The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same.
Robert A. Heinlein
#23. Some people are ants by nature; they have to work, even when it's useless. Few people have a talent for constructive laziness.
Robert A. Heinlein
#24. The lessons of history teach us - if the lessons of history teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Robert A. Heinlein
#25. You're not privileged to call me 'Boss'; you're not tax deductible.
Robert A. Heinlein
#26. Nurse, if she didn't have more money than any person ought to have, you might be tempted to call it senile dementia. As it is, she is in for a rest and a check-up.
Robert A. Heinlein
#28. I had the unsettling feeling that I had been completely mistaken as to the very nature of the world I was in, as if every part was something wildly different from what it appeared to be ...
Robert A. Heinlein
#31. As for logic and internal consistency, these mundane rules do not apply to sacred writings and never have ...
Robert A. Heinlein
#33. But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any "maternal" in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn't they?
Robert A. Heinlein
#34. Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Robert A. Heinlein
#35. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
Robert A. Heinlein
#37. Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke.
Robert A. Heinlein
#39. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?
Robert A. Heinlein
#41. Hit it! You have to hit it harder than that. Electrons are timid little things but notional; you have to let them know who's boss.
Robert A. Heinlein
#42. Though weather is important while it happens it seems to me to be pretty dull to look back on. You can take descriptions of most any sort of weather out of an almanac and stick them in just anywhere; they'll probably fit.
Robert A. Heinlein
#43. Any custom is man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of relationships. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily has its exceptions.
Robert A. Heinlein
#45. Light-months - and it was now possible to infer by parainterferometric methods that the star (ZD9817, or simply "our" star) had planets of some sort.
Robert A. Heinlein
#48. Because revolution - armed uprising - requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. A revolutionist has to be willing to fight and die - or he's just a parlor pink. If you separate out the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble.
Robert A. Heinlein
#50. Even with Las Vegas giddy around me I felt as alone as Robinson Crusoe.
Robert A. Heinlein
#53. In a matter of some generations all the stupid ones will die out and those with your discipline will inherit the Earth
Robert A. Heinlein
#54. 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.
Robert A. Heinlein
#55. It takes two to create a heaven, but hell can be accomplished by one.
Robert A. Heinlein
#56. When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it rains, I can't fix it nohow.
Robert A. Heinlein
#57. The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.
Robert A. Heinlein
#58. Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system.
Robert A. Heinlein
#59. Most neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers.
Robert A. Heinlein
#61. But, Jill, if a thing is sinful on Sunday, it is sinful on Friday - at least it groks that way to an outsider, myself - or perhaps to a man from Mars.
Robert A. Heinlein
#62. Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water;
Robert A. Heinlein
#63. God made alcohol and he made feet - and he made 'em so you could put 'em together and be happy!
Robert A. Heinlein
#65. Death is an old friend; I know him well. I lived with him, ate with him, slept with him; to meet him again does not frighten me death is as necessary as birth, as happy in its own way.
Robert A. Heinlein
#66. The best things in history are accomplished by people who get tired of being shoved around.
Robert A. Heinlein
#68. The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but
" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
Robert A. Heinlein
#69. There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.
Robert A. Heinlein
#70. We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry.
Robert A. Heinlein
#71. We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
Robert A. Heinlein
#73. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive - and nowhere else! - and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.
Robert A. Heinlein
#74. Big money isn't hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of single-minded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money.
Robert A. Heinlein
#75. When a cat greets you, he makes a big operation of it, bumping, stropping your legs, buzzing like mischief. But when he leaves, he just walks off and never looks back. Cats are smart.
Robert A. Heinlein
#76. If I don't start having service I'm going to swap you all for a dog and shoot the dog.
Robert A. Heinlein
#77. We're simply trying to survive - and the first principle of survival is not to worry about the impossible and concentrate on what's possible.
Robert A. Heinlein
#78. To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer.
Robert A. Heinlein
#79. Why don't they make more science fiction movies? The answer to any question starting, Why don't they- is almost always, Money.
Robert A. Heinlein
#81. I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces
with the other matters handled otherwise. I'm sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything now.
Robert A. Heinlein
#82. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome ... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).
Robert A. Heinlein
#83. That's what I was trying to find out when we were rushed off on this damned safari. They have unusual intestinal flora and it may have something to do with that. But I think it has to do with the fact that they never stop growing.
Robert A. Heinlein
#84. A boy who gets a C- in 'Appreciation of Television' can't be all bad.
Robert A. Heinlein
#85. These people who deal in fancification to fool the public think nobody can read and write but themselves.
Robert A. Heinlein
#86. Dress yourself in heavy fishing waders, put on an overcoat and boxing gloves and a bucket over your head, then have somebody strap two sacks of cement across your shoulders and you will know what a space suit feels like under one gravity.
Robert A. Heinlein
#88. Of all the creatures on this planet none is more dangerous than a human being.
Robert A. Heinlein
#89. I don't pay attention to politics." "You should. It's barely less important than your own heart beat." "I don't pay attention to that, either.
Robert A. Heinlein
#90. Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
Robert A. Heinlein
#92. But the physical danger was judged to be less important than the psychological stresses. Eight humans, crowded together like monkeys for almost three Terran years, had better get along much better than humans usually did.
Robert A. Heinlein
#94. The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.
Robert A. Heinlein
#95. Africa and Europe responded more sensibly but differently. Life has never been sacred in Africa and those who went sight-seeing on targets got little bleeding-heart treatment.
Robert A. Heinlein
#96. Age does not bring wisdom, Ben, but it does give perspective ... and the saddest sight of all is to see, far behind you, temptations you've resisted.
Robert A. Heinlein
#97. Is this Paradise?'
'I can guarantee you that it isn't,' Jubal assured him. 'My taxes are due this week.
Robert A. Heinlein
#98. An air car was just landing in the garden by the pool and beings under it were complaining of injuries and indignities done them. Perhaps this was the trouble he could feel? Grasses were for walking on, flowers and bushes were not - this was a wrongness.
Robert A. Heinlein
#99. To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maximum return simply because it was easier to be rich than to be poor - Harshaw merely wished to live exactly as he liked, doing whatever he thought was best for him.
Robert A. Heinlein
#100. Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Robert A. Heinlein
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