Authors:

Robert A. Heinlein Quotes - Page 9

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
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

Robert A. Heinlein
Ideas, Firsts, Delusion
Robert A. Heinlein (2013). “The Man Who Sold the Moon and Orphans of the Sky”, p.22, Baen Publishing Enterprises

No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.

Robert A. Heinlein
Heart, Age, Eighteen

You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Conquer, Propaganda
Robert A. Heinlein (2007). “Glory Road”, p.318, Macmillan

Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Prison, Solitary

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Democracy, Assumption
Time Enough for Love "Intermission" (1973)

In the eighty or ninety years I have given to this subject, trying to trace out the meanderings of their twisty little minds, the only thing that I have learned for certain about women is that when a gal is gonna, she's gonna. All a man can do is cooperate with the inevitable.

Robert A. Heinlein
Women, Years, Mind

I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!

Robert A. Heinlein
Country, Thinking, Years
Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington, 1961.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes.

Robert A. Heinlein
Eye, Enemy, Villain
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.224, Penguin

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]

Robert A. Heinlein
Courage, Fear, Men
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.231, Penguin

Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

Robert A. Heinlein
Inspirational, Mom, Mother
Robert A. Heinlein (2005). “Have Space Suit, Will Travel”, p.183, Simon and Schuster

There are only five things really worth drawing; four of them are pretty girls and the fifth is cats.

Robert A. Heinlein
Girl, Cat, Drawing

If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.

Robert A. Heinlein
Ideas, Giving, Creative
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.237, Penguin

A community where everyone is a ruthless murderer, with handy access to death-dealing devices, is a very polite community.

Robert A. Heinlein
Community, Ruthless, Polite

It's a man's business to be what he is, and to be it in style.

Robert A. Heinlein
Men, Style
Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “Methuselah's Children”, p.84, Hachette UK

I did the only really brave thing I have ever done in my life: I inched forward.

Robert A. Heinlein
Brave, Done
Robert A. Heinlein (2007). “Glory Road”, p.203, Macmillan

Brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value.

Robert A. Heinlein
Real, Commodity, Real Value
Robert A. Heinlein (1982). “Friday”

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

Robert A. Heinlein
Liberty, Selfishness, Libertarian
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.325, Penguin

The whole principle (censorship) is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.

Robert A. Heinlein
Baby, Men, Principles
Robert A. Heinlein (2013). “The Man Who Sold the Moon and Orphans of the Sky”, p.206, Baen Publishing Enterprises

How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven.

Robert A. Heinlein
Cat, Heaven, Dignity
Robert A. Heinlein (1988). “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”

Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.

Robert A. Heinlein
Moral Behavior, Selfishness, Conflict
"The Pragmatics of Patriotism". Address at the U.S. Naval Academy, April 5, 1973.

But does Man have any 'right' to spread through the universe? Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics, you name it, is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what man is, not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be. The Universe will let us know - later - whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it.

Robert A. Heinlein
War, Future, Men
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.144, Penguin

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.

Robert A. Heinlein
Writing, Way, Rooms

Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

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

No storyteller has been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe.

Robert A. Heinlein
Dream, Science, Mad
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.41, Penguin

We came here for a small, informal meeting. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants.

Robert A. Heinlein
Elephants, Circus, Wells
Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.190, Penguin

You May Also Like: