Top 682 Quotes & Sayings by Robert A. Heinlein - Page 3

It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person's behavior. The most you or any leader can do is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.

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.

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

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

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...

I came, I saw, she conquered." The original Latin seems to have been garbled.

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

It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.

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

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.

Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.

Fulfillment in life is loving a good woman and killing a bad man.

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

The most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win.

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

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

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

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.

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

Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them.

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

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

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

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

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money but long on hugs

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

I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces - with the other matters handled otherwise. I'm sick of the way government sticks its nose in everything, now.

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]

I'll give you an exact definition. When the happiness of another person becomes as essential to yourself as your own, then the state of love exists.

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 two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a corner and watch them going past is delightful. They don't walk. At least not what we do when we walk. I don't know how to describe it, but it's much more complex and utterly delightful. They don't move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions . . . and all of it graceful.

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.

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

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

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.

Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is - so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.

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

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

The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation.

How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show - it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

...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.

Thinking doesn't pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which can - and must - be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly - and no doubt will keep trying.

There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat.

No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.

Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.

- I'm so busy doing what I must do that I don't have time for what I ought to do... and I never get a chance to do what I want to do! - Son, that's universal. The way to keep that recipe from killing you is occasionally to do what you want to do anyhow.

It's a man's business to be what he is, and to be it in style.

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.

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

The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

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

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

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

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.

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?