Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.

I suppose they can afford it. They have a mellow climate from British Canada to the Mexican Kingdom and much of the richest farm land on Earth.

A tramp is a bum, a parasite, a man that won't work. A hobo is an itinerant laborer who prefers casual freedom to security. He works for his living, but he won't be tied down to one environment.

Solipsism, for heaven's sake! God invented people to amuse Him because He didn't have television—that makes just as much sense!

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." ? Robert A. Heinlein, writing as Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

They made solemn pronouncements about conditions a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, on the basis of computer models, which they had produced with computers not even bright enough to talk, let alone understand speech. They were unlike all the generations before theirs in several ways, but chiefly in that they had no faintest clue how ignorant they were. Previous ages had usually had a pretty good handle on that.

One thing that I always did every time I reached an inhabited planet was to study law. Not to practice. . . . But to understand the ground rules.

Respect for laws is a pragmatic matter. Women know this instinctively; that's why they are all smugglers. Men often believe — or pretend — that the 'Law' is something sacred, or at least a science.

a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out.

YetiÅŸkinlik, insan?n ölmek zorunda olduÄŸunu anlad??? yaÅŸ olarak tan?mlanabilir... ve cezas?n? dehÅŸete düÅŸmeden kabullendiÄŸi

I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls.

He had a low opinion of Britons and all barbarians including me ("nothing personal—some of my best friends are barbarians"), women, the British climate, high brass, and priests; he thought well of Caesar, Rome, the gods, and his own professional ability. The army wasn't what it used to be and the slump came from treating auxiliaries like Roman citizens.

Jacob, even though I find it necessary to leave you … I love and respect you … and will always listen to you.

Dad would haul down a book and we'd look it up. Then he would try four or five more with other opinions. Dad doesn't hold with the idea that it-must-be-true-or-they-wouldn't-have-printed-it; he doesn't consider any opinion sacred—it shocked me the first time he took out a pen and changed something in one of my math books.

Everybody is Equal and Everybody has a vote. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

want them to be as alert as a mouse at a cat show.

My opinions as to the future of Mankind are hedged in by this statement: I think it is necessary for the human race to establish colonies off this planet. —Admiral Caleb Saunders, interview, Butler, MO, USA, Terra July 7, 1987 ("Anson MacDonald Day") You know the date. Everyone does. Everyone always will. If we're lucky.

Well— I feel so damn useless!

cops and courts no longer protect citizens, so citizens must protect themselves.

I told her that no born leader seeks command; the mantle descends on him, he wears the burden because he must.

But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.

He knew that he did not invent the information brought to him by his senses. There had to be something else out there, some otherness that produced the things his senses recorded. All philosophies that claimed that the physical world around him did not exist except in his imagination were sheer nonsense. But

People treat me nice, I treat them nice. If they don't, I walk away. I don't worry much.

I have taken lots of orders, some of which I shouldn't have, but I had never yet taken orders from a piece of machinery. "Go climb a rope!" I said. "You'll have to drag me." This is not what to say to a robot. It did.