Robert a. heinlein quotes

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" : but beavers and their dams are.

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

God created men to test the souls of women.

The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it.

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

Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.

The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it.

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.

The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same.

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

If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement.

Love is what still goes on when you're not horny.

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!

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.

A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.

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

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds 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.

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.

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.

The lessons of history teach us - if the lessons of history teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat driver” syndrome.

I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back...

Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.

A religion is a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong--and you are strong. The great trouble with religion--any religion--is that the religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge these propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason--but one cannot have both.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.

There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it without toil, without sweat, without tears. Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.

You live and learn. Or you don't live long.

[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.

Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.

Some people insist that "mediocre" is better than "best." They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.

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.

Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.

The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it continues until it destroys.

You do not truly own anything that you can't carry in both arms at a dead run

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

Anything free costs twice as much in the long run or turns out worthless.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

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.

A fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Ninety percent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business.

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.

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.

Figure out for yourself what you want to be really good at, know that you'll never really satisfy yourself that you've made it, and accept that that's okay.

Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such [gun control] laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to resist.

Widows are far better than brides. They don't tell, they won't yell, they don't swell, they rarely smell, and they're grateful as hell.

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.

Never try to outstubborn a cat.

May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.

No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.

Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. 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.

The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.

Learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny

Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.

The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Never frighten a little man. He'll kill you.

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'.

The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. That's a personal evaluation, of course.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different--in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.

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

A managed democracy is a wonderful thing... for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible'.

No matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

People usually believe anything that they are told early and often.

Democracy can survive anything except Democrats

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.

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.

Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.

I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it's better to laugh than cry.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.

Remember though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp -provided it's loaded.

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.

The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.

Being privileged to work hard for long hours at something you think is worth doing is the best kind of play.

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.

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

Love your country, but never trust its government.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.

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.

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.

A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.

You're in bad shape when your emotions force you into acts which you know are foolish.

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.

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. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose.

In a family argument, if it turns out you are right, apologize at once.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.