Misattributed Robert A Heinlein Quotes

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ~ Pierre Dos Utt

Never insult anyone by accident. ~ 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

The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Do this. Don't do that. Stay back in line. Where's tax receipt? Fill out form. Let's see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead - but first get permit. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Anything free is worth what you pay for it. ~ 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

Live and learn, or you don't live long. ~ 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

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. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

There wasn't any way to be safe; just being alive was deadly dangerous ... fatal, in the end. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

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

I told you when you hired him that - " "When I hired him?" "Don't interrupt. - that any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow-room is pleasanter
and much safer. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

[J]uvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue
indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge and duty and embraces it more than the self-love he was born with. ~ 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

Stinky says women should be obscene but not heard. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

People simplify 'Apollonian' into 'mild', and 'calm', and 'cool'. But 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' are two sides of one coin
a nun kneeling in her cell, holding perfectly still, can be in ecstacy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny ~ 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

Specialisation is for insects! ~ 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

There is no safety this side of the grave ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Always store beer in a dark place. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything, and he puts the pieces together. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Being "up to something" was the unnamable and unforgiveable crime for which any American male could be indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced in one breath. He wondered how things had gotten rigged so that the male half of the race must always behave to suit feminine rules and feminine logic, like a snotty-nosed school boy in front of a stern teacher. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Democracy can survive anything except Democrats ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Violence never settles anything should be debated by the ghosts of Hitler and Stalin, with the city fathers of Carthage as referees. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Anything free costs twice as much in the long run or turns out worthless. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

His lights blinked in binary read-out as he answered by voder, Eleven thousand two hundred thirty-eight with uncertainty plus-minus eighty-one representing possible identities and nulls. Shall I start program? ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Since when was an emotional argument won by logic? ~ 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

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I made a very important discovery at Camp Currie. Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you've ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don't need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to sack out in it and he's as happy as a worm in an apple - asleep. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

I pity the poverty of your wealth. ~ 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

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable. ~ Robert A. Heinlein