ROBERT A. HEINLEIN QUOTES
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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, Stranger in a Strange Land
Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
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.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Time Enough For Love
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The foulest sinner of all is the hypocrite who makes a racket of religion.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
If a thing is sinful on Sunday, it is sinful on Friday.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Man Who Sold the Moon
It is said that God notes each sparrow that falls. And so He does. But the proper closest statement of it that can be made in English is that God cannot avoid noting the sparrow because the Sparrow is God. And when a cat stalks a sparrow both of them are God, carrying out God's thoughts.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
"Value" has no meaning other than in relationship to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human—"market value" is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Starship Troopers
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Time Enough for Love
I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
A government is a living organism. Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive. You hit it, it will fight back.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America--and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseuam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist--a master ... can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is ... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be ... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart ... no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Big money isn't hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of single-minded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
The ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for "art" that leaves him unmoved--if he does pay for it, the money has to be conned out of him, by taxes and such.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time--and then shut up.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be big as space itself.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Double Star
You obviously don't know what an Old Man of the Sea great wealth is. It is not a fat purse and time to spend it. Its owner finds himself beset on every side, at every hour, wherever he goes, by persistent pleaders, like beggars in Bombay, each demanding that he invest or give away part of his wealth. He becomes suspicious of honest friendship--indeed honest friendship is rarely offered him; those who could have been his friends are too fastidious to be jostled by beggars, too proud to risk being mistaken for one.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
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