Robert A. Heinlein - Self Quotes

22 Sourced Quotes

View all Robert A. Heinlein Quotes
His older self had taught his younger self a language which the older self knew because the younger self, after being taught, grew up to be the older self and was, therefore, capable of teaching.

Robert A. Heinlein
A fact has no "why." There it stands, self demonstrating.

Robert A. Heinlein
The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.

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

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

Robert A. Heinlein
If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

Robert A. Heinlein
A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world... aware that his efforts will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.

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

Robert A. Heinlein
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.

Robert A. Heinlein
Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation... whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce — render emotional — his audience, each time.

Robert A. Heinlein
Self awareness is NOT just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

Robert A. Heinlein
People tend to fall into three psychological types, all differently motivated. There is the type, motivated by economic factors, money... And there is the type motivated by 'face,' or pride. This type is a spender, fighter, boaster, lover, sportsman, gambler; he has a will to power and an itch for glory. And there is the professional type, which claims to follow a code of ethics rather than simply seeking money or glory—priests and ministers, teachers, scientists, medical men, some artists and writers. The idea is that such a man believes that he is devoting his life to some purpose more important than his individual self. You follow me?

Robert A. Heinlein
I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.

Robert A. Heinlein
But what you're talking about means giving up all that—just the noble primitive, simple and self-sufficient. He's going to chop down a tree—who sold him the ax? He wants to shoot a deer—who made his gun?... There never was and there never could be a noble simple creature such as you described. He'd be an ignorant savage, with dirt on his skin and lice in his hair. He would work sixteen hours a day to stay alive at all. He'd sleep in a filthy hut on a dirt floor. And his point of view and his mental processes would be just two jumps above an animal.

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

Robert A. Heinlein
First you must learn to control your self. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes.

Robert A. Heinlein
Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

Robert A. Heinlein
We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in self-protection

Robert A. Heinlein
The Universe was a silly place at best...but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings 'just happened' to be atoms that 'just happened' to get together in ways which 'just happened' to look like consistent laws and some configurations 'just happened' to possess self-awareness and that two 'just happened' to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.

Robert A. Heinlein
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

Robert A. Heinlein
Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion — in the long run these are the only people who count.

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