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A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
You live and learn. Or you don't live long.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
What are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future, facts are your single clue.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.)
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Copulation is spiritual in essence--or it is merely friendly exercise. On second thought, strike out "merely." Copulation is not "merely"--even when it is just a happy pastime for two strangers. But copulation at its spiritual best is so much more than physical coupling that it is different in kind as well as in degree.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
When a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse is not far away.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity ... and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, attributed, Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Progress doesn't come from early risers -- progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Time Enough for Love
Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Starship Troopers
If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship."
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Time Enough for Love
Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Assignment in Eternity
Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Starship Troopers
I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Guest of Honor Speech, 3rd World Science Fiction Convention, Denver, Colorado, "The Discovery of the Future", July 4, 1941
There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Have Space Suit--Will Travel
The shamans are forever yacking about their snake oil miracles. I prefer the real McCoy, a pregnant woman.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long
A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Friday
Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Have Space Suit--Will Travel
Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy -- in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Kiss girls all you want to -- it beats the hell out of card games.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
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 HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.
ROBERT HEINLEIN, Beyond This Horizon
His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, Stranger in a Strange Land
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