Heinlein Quotes

In handling a stinging insect, move very slowly. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

That we were slaves I had known all my life
and nothing could be done about it. True, we weren't bought and sold
but as long as Authority held monopoly over what we had to have and what we could sell to buy it, we were slaves. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

No matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

...most things are right or wrong only in their backgrounds; few things are good or evil in themselves. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Eighty million steel juggernauts, operated by imperfect human beings at high speeds, are more destructive than war. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

They tell a story, probably not true, about a cap trooper who was sight-seeing in Paris. He visited Les Invalides, looked down at Napoleon's coffin, and said to a French guard there: "Who's he?"
The Frenchman was properly scandalized. "Monsieur does not know? This is the tomb of Napoleon! Napoleon Bonaparte! The greatest soldier who ever lived!"
The cap trooper thought about it. Then he asked, "So? Where were his drops? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Sir, talking with a Martian is like talking with an echo. You don't get argument but you don't get results. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If it has to be done, a man - a real man - shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Cats, like butterflies, need no excuse. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Come Judgment Day, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Jubal paused, surprised at himself. He had intended to make the usual agnostic approach . . . and found himself compulsively following his legal training, being an honest advocate in spite of himself, attempting to support a religious belief he did not hold but which was believed by most human beings. He found that, willy-nilly, he was attorney for the orthodoxies of his own race against - he wasn't sure what. An unhuman viewpoint. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

You are telling me that I did something because I was going to do something."
"Well, didn't you? You were there."
"No, I didn't - no ... well, maybe I did, but it didn't feel like it."
"Why should you expect it to? It was something totally new to your experience."
"But ... but - " Wilson took a deep breath and got control of himself. Then he reached back into his academic philosophical concepts and produced the notion he had been struggling to express. "It denies all reasonable theories of causation. You would have me believe that causation can be completely circular. I went through because I came back from going through to persuade myself to go through. That's silly."
"Well, didn't you? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I pity the poverty of your wealth. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Small change can often be found under seat cushions. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Patriotism is not 'my country right or wrong'; patriotism means loving the ideals for which America stands and having the courage to speak up when these ideals are distorted for personal or political gain. The American government was instituted to be the servant of the people, not our master. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If change threatens you, you become conservative in self-defense. If it thrills you, you become liberal in self-liberation. He says the Threateneds are frequently more successful in the short run, because they always fight dirty. But in the long run, they always lose, because Thrilled people learn and thus accomplish more. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Young man, can you restore my eyesight?" "Sir? Why, no, sir!" "You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue - social responsibility - into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

In the eighty or ninety years I have given to this subject, trying to trace out the meanderings of their twisty little minds, the only thing that I have learned for certain about women is that when a gal is gonna, she's gonna. All a man can do is cooperate with the inevitable. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. ~ Ernest Cline

I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth
then shut up. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

It comes from exercising care in the choice of parents. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. 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. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" - not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The best things in history are accomplished by people who get tired of being shoved around. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I don't pay much attention to politics."
"You should. It's barely less important than your own heart beat. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

write an article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers. Title ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

It was equally imperative that this chain of reactions should always tend to dampen, to die out. It must not build up, or the uranium mass would explode within a time interval too short to be measured by any means whatsoever. Nor would there be anyone left to measure it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

We came here for a small, informal meeting. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Sometimes there just isn't any cure for a situation. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

It took you long enough to answer your phone." "It's my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don't answer it at all. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it rains, I can't fix it nohow. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Behind every mystery lies another mystery. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don't plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Abstract knowledge is always useful, sooner or later. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Gentlemen, let's go row! ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I'm not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If you got good elective officials in your day, it was a happy accident, better than you deserved. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language
this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible
despite its barbaric accretions ... or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Whores perform the same function as priests, but far more thoroughly. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector ... and miss. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Learning isn't a means to an end; it is an end in itself. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it's not his choice. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The most difficult speculation for a science fiction writer to undertake is to imagine correctly the *secondary* implications of a new factor. Many people correctly anticipated the coming of the horseless carriage, some were bold enough to predict that everyone would use them and the horse would disappear. But I know of no writer, fiction or non-fiction, who saw ahead of time the vast change in the courting and mating habits of Americans which would result primarily from the automobile."

Expanded Universe ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If you do not believe that a man will commit murder for one can of tomatoes, then you have never been hungry. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Never pick up a stray kitten ... unless you've already made up your mind to be owned by it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Jill ... had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok
and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and had made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure that Mike would refuse a pass, say, from Duke
fortunately Mike's male water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow
they would never be offered water. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

If a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. (Lazarus Long) ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion ... and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself - ultimate cost for perfect value. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia - the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death ... before they breed more hemophiliacs. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Civilians are like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.
But you can't buy fighting spirit. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

She might get high enough to crash - no higher. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Sit back down - and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Jubal waved the man back. "Private," he said firmly. "Family matter. Go have a drink." "Whose family?" "A death in yours, if you insist. Scat! ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

Well, I suppose it did. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time - we've never been told to go down and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Some logics get nervous breakdowns. Overloaded phone system behaves like frightened child. Mike did not have upsets, acquired sense of humor instead. Low one. If he were a man, you wouldn't dare stoop over. His idea of thigh-slapper would be to dump you out of bed - or put itch powder in pressure suit. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I was not in bad health (aside from a cumulative hangover), I was still on the right side of thirty by a few days, and I was far from being broke. No police were looking for me, nor any husbands, nor any process servers; there was nothing wrong that a slight case of amnesia would not have cured.
But there was winter in my heart and I was looking for the door to summer. If I sound like a man with an acute case of self-pity, you are correct. There must have been well over two billion people on this planet in worse shape than I was. Nevertheless, I was looking for the Door into Summer. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I needed a space suit the way a pig needs a pipe organ. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I've been kissed by men who did a very good job. But they don't give kissing their whole attention. They can't. No matter how hard they try parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus - or their chances of making the gal - or their own techniques in kissing - or maybe worry about jobs, or money, or will husband or papa or the neighbors catch on. Mike doesn't have technique ... but when Mike 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. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

A girl's name ending in 'a' - that always suggests a 'C' cup. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

It's not that easy. You can make omelet from eggs, but not eggs from omelet. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The future is better than the past. Despite the crepe hangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands ... with tools ... with horse sense and science and engineering. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge ... and stronger. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

There is a misconception, geocentric and anthropomorphic, common to the large majority the the earthbound, which causes them to visualize a planetary system stereoscopically. The mind's eye sees a sun, remote from a backdrop of stars, and surrounded by spinning apples
the planets. Step out on your balcony and look. Can you tell the planets from the stars? Venus you may pick out with ease, but could you tell it from Canopus, if you had not previously been introduced? That little red speck
is it Mars, or is it Antares? Blast for Antares, believing it to be a planet, and you will never live to have grandchildren. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Was there ever a time when the majority was right? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Good!" the creature echoed. "Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like some breakfast?" All four symbols in the query were in Smith's vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard them rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not "feel like" food. Nor had he had any warning that he might be selected for such an honor. He had not known that the food supply was such that it was necessary to reduce the corporate group. He was filled with mild regret, since there was still so much to grok of these new events, but no reluctance. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The ones that landed near the bathroom are Bad Tolkien imitations or transcripts of a D&D adventure; bad Herbert, Heinlein, and Asimov are below the television; and these on the bed are the ones whose authors I want to hunt down personally and slap. ~ Sharyn McCrumb

All cats are not gray after midnight. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

All men are created unequal. ~ Robert A. Heinlein