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Robert A. Heinlein Quotes - Page 15

All Quotes Age Art Assumption Atheism Atheist Authority Beauty Birth Challenges Children Choices Church Country Crime Culture Democracy Duty Dying Earth Education Effort Eternity Ethics Evidence Evil Evolution Experience Feelings Fighting Flattery Freedom Funny Genius Giving Goodness Gratitude Happiness Happiness And Love Hard Work Hate Heart Heaven History Home Humanity Hurt Ignorance Inspirational Jealousy Knowledge Language Laziness Learning Liars Liberty Life Logic Love Luck Lying Manners Math Military Money Moon Morality Motivational Pain Past Peace Pleasure Police Politics Pride Propaganda Psychology Purpose Religion Responsibility Risk Running Sacrifice Safety Science Selfishness Sin Sleep Society Son Space Travel Sports Stupidity Style Survival Teaching Technology Time Trust Truth Tyranny Understanding Victory Violence Virtue Volunteer War Wife Winning Wisdom Worry Writing
People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living.

People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living.

Robert A. Heinlein
Writing, People, Diaries

Learning isn't a means to an end; it is an end in itself.

Robert A. Heinlein
Learning, Mean, Experience
Robert A. Heinlein (2010). “Time for the Stars”, p.55, Macmillan

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.

Robert A. Heinlein
Travel, Space, Far Away
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.228, Penguin

Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn - when they do, which isn't often - on their own, the hard way.

Robert A. Heinlein
Learning, Creativity, Experience
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.32, Penguin

It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

Robert A. Heinlein
Sarcastic, Lying, Able
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.34, Penguin

Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not - and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Sweat, Training
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.94, Penguin

His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.

Robert A. Heinlein
Consistency, Mind, Logic
Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.96, Hachette UK

Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it.

Robert A. Heinlein
Wise, Kings, Men
"Starship Troopers". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1959.

You have to give an editor something to change, or he gets fretful. After he pees in it, he likes the flavor better, so he buys it.

Robert A. Heinlein
Editors, Giving, Flavor

When he kisses you he isn't doing anything else. You're his whole universe, and the moment is eternal because he doesn't have any plans and isn't going anywhere. Just kissing you ... it's overwhelming.

Robert A. Heinlein
Kissing, Moments, Stolen Kisses
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.175, Penguin

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Robert A. Heinlein
Appreciation, Men, Genius
Robert A. Heinlein (2013). “Double Star”, p.18, Hachette UK

Women seem to have almost unlimited capacity for forgiveness. (Since it is usually a man who needs forgiveness, this must be a racial survival trait.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Survival, Needs
"The Cat Who Walks Through Walls". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 16, p. 200, 1985.

We each have a moral obligation to conserve and preserve beauty in this world; there is none to waste.

Robert A. Heinlein
Beauty, World, Waste
Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too.

Robert A. Heinlein
Wise, Men, Law
Robert A. Heinlein (1985). “Job, a Comedy of Justice”, Del Rey

It is better to copulate than never.

Robert A. Heinlein
Sex
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.225, Penguin

In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies.

Robert A. Heinlein
Past, Government, Sometimes
"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, Ch. 22, 1966.

There is no such thing as 'social gambling.' Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it -- or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice -- don't gamble.

Robert A. Heinlein
Heart, Cutting, Gambling
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.235, Penguin

What we think of as 'Physical beauty' is almost certainly a tag for a complex of useful survival characteristics. Smartness - intelligence - among them.

Robert A. Heinlein
Thinking, Survival, Tag
"I Will Fear No Evil" by Robert A. Heinlein, Ace Books, (p. 35), 1987.

Patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.

Robert A. Heinlein
Eye, Men, Race
"The Pragmatics of Patriotism". Address at the U.S. Naval Academy, April 5, 1973.

High Frontier places a bullet-proof vest on our bare chest. High Frontier is as non-aggressive as a bullet-proof vest. There is no way to kill anyone with High Frontier - all that High Frontier can do is to keep others from killing us.

Robert A. Heinlein
Peace, War, Bullets

From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.

Robert A. Heinlein
Views, Conceit, Point Of View
"The Past Through Tomorrow" by Robert A. Heinlein, G. P. Putnam Inc., (p. 431), 1967.

Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.

Robert A. Heinlein
Psychosis, Neurosis, Sin
Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.106, Hachette UK

Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules about sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lessers.

Robert A. Heinlein
Sex, Genius, Monkeys
Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

Robert A. Heinlein
Art, Poetry, May
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.223, Penguin

My old man taught me two things: 'Mind own business' and 'Always cut cards.'

Robert A. Heinlein
Life, Cutting, Men
Robert A Heinlein (1966). “Moon Is Harsh Mistres”, Berkley

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