Quotes from Robert Heinlein

Men are not potatoes!

History does not record anywhere a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.

Apparently Blank thinks I am a nice accommodating guy, please explain to him that I am a son of a bitch

When One Teaches, Two Learn

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.

Writing can be learned, but not taught.

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 unsophisticated 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 attribute to malice, that which can be explained through ignorance.

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay — such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients? 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.

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.

Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries — but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses... in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.

I know that I am free because I alone am responsible for everything that I do.

A wise man could not be insulted, since truth could not insult and untruth was not worthy of notice.

Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.

The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. 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. Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened. I love you. Thou art God. -Valentine Michael Smith

We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry.

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

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible.

Sir, I can use profanity in more than a thousand languages, some having curses that will addle an egg at a hundred paces.

It scared him a little. He had once heard, and was inclined to credit, that a loss of interest in living marked the true turning point in the battle between anabolisim and catabolism-old age.

Harshaw concluded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels

Soldier, shut up and Soldier

Girls, he reflected, are much odder than dragons. Probably another race entirely.

I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting." Robert Heinlein STRANGER IN A STRANGELAND