Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

502 Sourced Quotes

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Robert A. Heinlein
Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.

Robert A. Heinlein
Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.

Robert A. Heinlein
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.

Robert A. Heinlein
A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won't be wrong too often.

Robert A. Heinlein
The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger.

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

Robert A. Heinlein
I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.

Robert A. Heinlein
I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy... censorship. 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. 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.

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 woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not

Robert A. Heinlein
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool).

Robert A. Heinlein
Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong — but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.

Robert A. Heinlein
An invention is something that was impossible up to then—that's why governments grant patents.

Robert A. Heinlein
I have never been impressed by the formal schools of ethics. I had sampled them — public libraries are a ready source of recreation for an actor short of cash — but I had found them as poor in vitamins as a mother-in-law's kiss. Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything. I had the same contempt for the moral instruction handed to most children. Much of it is prattle and the parts they really seem to mean are dedicated to the sacred proposition that a good child is one who does not disturb mother's nap and a good man is one who achieves a muscular bank account without getting caught. No, thanks!

Robert A. Heinlein
Between being 'right' and being kind, I know which way I vote.

Robert A. Heinlein
He decided to stay in his space suit; explosive decompression didn't appeal to him. Come to think about it, death from old age was his choice.

Robert A. Heinlein
Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise.

Robert A. Heinlein
Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It's just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are 'inspired.' Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.

Robert A. Heinlein
Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?" "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady.

Robert A. Heinlein
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Robert A. Heinlein
If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgment.

Robert A. Heinlein
With eternity to draw on there could be no reason for hurrying - 'hurry' was not a concept in Martian.

Robert A. Heinlein
Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.

Robert A. Heinlein
From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.

Robert A. Heinlein
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.

Robert A. Heinlein
Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn - when they do, which isn't often - on their own, the hard way.

Robert A. Heinlein
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.

Robert A. Heinlein
Babies are fun. And they're not much trouble. Feed 'em occasionally, help them when they need it, and love them a lot. That's all there is to it.

Robert A. Heinlein
People don't really want change, any change at all — and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But we progress, as we must — if we are to go out to the stars.

Robert A. Heinlein