Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

More depended on the student than on the school.

a friend who offers help without asking for explanations is a treasure beyond price.

He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so.

Freedom is a hard habit to break.

Ben Caxton, I will lie right here in the grass and starve before I will get up to push a button that is six inches from your right forefinger.

Want to back out?" Jill let out a long breath. "No. I've always wanted a life of crime. Will you teach me gangster lingo? I want to be a credit to you.

These people who deal in fancification to fool the public think nobody can read and write but themselves.

conserving capital and insuring the welfare of children—the two basic societal functions for marriage everywhere

this has more aspects than a cat has hair.

He was looking that way now and the projected print moved along the screen, but he was not really reading but simply avoiding the eyes of his boss across the table. Mrs. Douglas did not read newspapers; she had other ways of finding out what she needed to know.

The duty of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition is to oppose.

A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong---and you are strong. The great trouble with religion---any religion---is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask in at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason---but one cannot have both

Anything which is physically possible can be made financially possible, if the people of a state desire it.

I told you when you hired him that—" "When I hired him?" "Don't interrupt. —that any man who would take money two ways would take it three ways just as quickly.

I'm not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting.

Thy will be done –' No Muslim claiming to be a 'slave of God' ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist.

You can't believe what a lovely planet we have until you see her from outside.

One damn sure thing!—he wasn't going to let them be rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted, but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way.

But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any "maternal" in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn't they?

Nevertheless, her own political philosophy could have been stated baldly (which it never was) as a belief that men should rule the world and women should rule men.

We necessarily sift a great many pebbles, much sand, for each nugget—but the nuggets are the reward.

Her calculations were sometimes a little fuzzy, for the same reason that her checkbook sometimes did not balance; Becky Vesey (as she had been known as a child) had never really mastered the multiplication tables and she was inclined to confuse sevens with nines.

They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw's opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined.

Functional organization. How does one design an electric motor? Would you attach a bathtub to it, simply because one was available? Would a bouquet of flowers help? A heap of rocks? No, you would use just those elements necessary to its purpose and make it no larger than needed - and you would incorporate safety factors. Function controls design. So it is with revolution.