Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

502 Sourced Quotes

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

Robert A. Heinlein
Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.

Robert A. Heinlein
Butterflies are not insects... they are self-propelled flowers.

Robert A. Heinlein
The killer looked up as the bullet hit him. He looked as if he were puzzled by some strange occurence, being too freshly dead to be aware of it.

Robert A. Heinlein
Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).

Robert A. Heinlein
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is.

Robert A. Heinlein
Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.

Robert A. Heinlein
Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth.

Robert A. Heinlein
Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.

Robert A. Heinlein
I don't "believe" in anything. I know certain things — little things, not the Nine Billion Names of God — from experience. But I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.

Robert A. Heinlein
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.

Robert A. Heinlein
Pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival.

Robert A. Heinlein
When an apparent fact runs contrary to logic and common sense, it's obvious that you have failed to interpret the fact correctly.

Robert A. Heinlein
There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it necessary to do things in His official and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores.

Robert A. Heinlein
Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.

Robert A. Heinlein
He shut up, realizing that grim old Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw, invariably punished damn fools who tried to ignore Her or repeal Her ordinances.

Robert A. Heinlein
Big money isn't hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of single-minded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money.

Robert A. Heinlein
Son, that phrase is self-contradictory; "sense" is never "common".

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
At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people'... but the problem changes only superficially.

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

Robert A. Heinlein
When the need arises - and it does - you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out, that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.

Robert A. Heinlein
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Robert A. Heinlein
In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies.

Robert A. Heinlein
Crazy — a nonscientific term meaning that the person to whom one applies that label has a world picture differing from the accepted one.

Robert A. Heinlein
Mathematics can never prove anything. No mathematics has any content. All any mathematics can do is — sometimes — turn out to be useful in describing some aspects of our so-called "physical universe." That is a bonus; most forms of mathematics are as meaning-free as chess.

Robert A. Heinlein
Almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count.

Robert A. Heinlein
An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.

Robert A. Heinlein
There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself.

Robert A. Heinlein
I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward.

Robert A. Heinlein