Quotes About Progress

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.

What's that got to do with it? Learning isn't a means to an end; it is an end in itself.

The world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better... with hands... with tools... with horse sense and science and engineering.

I'm electron pusher by trade;

Robert A. Heinlein

we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations.

I wonder how harmless, such people are? To what extent civilization is retarded by the laughing jackasses, the empty-minded belittlers?

Distrust the obvious, suspect the traditional . . . for in the past mankind has not done well when saddling itself with governments

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

It [now] seems to me that every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another one away. Maybe two. And that seems to me characteristic of a society as it gets older, and more crowded, and higher taxes, and more laws.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

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.

Robert A. Heinlein

Sharpie, I thought you liked Star Trek?" "I do. But I've seen five years of it and we've got our own Star Trek now.

Your computers must be three-phase A.C.

Robert A. Heinlein

Often, when new growth occurs, the most dreadful things seem to happen, but then we see that they were exactly what was required.

When it is time for growth, the old ways and the old habits must welcome the new. The old way seems to hinder the new growth at every point, but if you persevere, this way will bring a new consciousness to birth.

Stupidity is like bumping into a wall all the time. After a while you get tired of it and try to look the situation over and see if there's a doorway somewhere. I think most people eventually do look for the doorway and stop bumping into the wall

How to evolve? Read my book Prometheus Rising, and do all the exercises in that. There are a lot of exercises. It will keep you busy for at least a year. And if at the end of that year you haven't evolved, write me a letter of complaint, and I'll try to write a better book.

The greatest progress that the human race has made lies in learning how to make correct inferences. —Nietzsche, Human, AU-Too-Human

What is man? A bridge between the ape and the Superman — a bridge over an abyss. — F.W. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra