Robert Heinlein Quotes
A competent writer can make a reader see anything or believe anything.
Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.
One man’s ‘magic’ is another man’s ‘engineering’. ‘Supernatural’ is a null word.
Don’t ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.
There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
Grasping desires can be as dangerous as threat—insidious, sneaky—and far, far more common.
Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.
Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny.
Never insult anyone accidentally.
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.
Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become.
Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion— in the long run these are the only people who count.
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.
An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
There is no conclusive evidence that the Moon is not made of green cheese.
What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what the stars foretell, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable verdict of history — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Eventually we’ll have quantum computers. We’ll harness all the bacteria and viruses and the organic bugs will get the hardware bugs and eat up the cyberjunk.
Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it’s supposed to do.
The competent man is the true nobility.
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
Always cut the cards.
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Political tags—such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily.
I never learned from a man who agreed with me.
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.
Culture is what makes life worth living.
I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.
Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer.
Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy — in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
Don’t ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun – and neither can stop the march of events.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.
Political tags—such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth—are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
You can have peace or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.