Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

Decentralization, dear

We shall drive ever forward along this line until all our citizens have above-average incomes!

They're not cruel; they're just pig-headed and provincial. The fact that you have feelings never occurs to them.

Spanish is so musical that a soap powder commercial in Spanish is more pleasing to the ear than the best free verse in English—the Spanish language is so beautiful that much of its poetry sounds best if the listener does not understand the meaning.

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

If God displaces the Devil, he must assume the Devil's attributes.

No, not exactly. Damn it, why couldn't she have married a white man? We brought her up better than that.

think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.

Control of anything essential to life should be decentralized and paralleled so that if one machine fails, another takes over.

There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many facts. Try to see a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that's science. Three: Awareness that you live in a malevolent universe controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset

God is waiting for you at suite 1208 Lewis and Clark Towers. Don't make Him come get you. You won't like it.

You're spoiled." "I intend to be. Jake, much of what is wrong with this world would be righted if the customer screamed every time he feels cheated.

best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.

I opened the small blade of my knife and handed it to Peewee, "With your shield or on it, soldier." "You take it." "I won't need it. 'Two-Fisted Death,' they call me around dark alleys." This was propaganda, but why worry her? Sans peur et sans reproche—maiden-rescuing done cheaply, special rates for parties.

Hopelessness in a worthy cause is no excuse for abandoning it. My race fought without hope for many generations … then hope appeared. You and yours may do the same.

TIME Magazine probably publishes many facts, but since its founding in the early 1920's I have been on the spot eight or nine times when something that wound up as a news story in TIME happened. Not once—not once—did the TIME Magazine story match what I saw and heard.

Without Gay, without her ability to do a Drunkard's Walk, we could have searched that planet for a lifetime, and never found either colony.

Sir, every nation is capable of atrocities, including our own.

Pop says cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves." "I'm afraid he's right." "My husband, I can't evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven't lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs." "Deety, your parents did okay.

She called out, All stations manned and ready, Captain! He looked at her and grinned. Stand by to raise ship! She answered, Board green! Clear from tower! Ready for count off! Minus thirty! Twenty-nine—twenty-eight— He broke off and added sheepishly, It does feel good.

How can I be sure? I'm a doctor, not a fortune-teller.

Minerva, if I sell a horse, I won't guarantee that it has a leg on each corner; the buyer must count them himself.

Oh, no, Sharpie. I've stood my watch; it's somebody else's turn. Now that you have resigned, we have no organization.

Look neat when you look for work, I always say—I do declare I won't hardly open the screen door to give a man a handout if he don't wear a necktie.