Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

When railroading time comes you can railroad—but not before.

Talking with a Martian is like talking with an echo. You don't get argument but you don't get results.

Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.

Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.

Jill: 'I don't pay attention to politics.' Ben: 'You should. It's barely less important than your own heart beat.' Jill: 'I don't pay attention to that, either.'

Was there ever a time when the majority was right?

Never try to have the last word. You might get it.

Never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do.

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another - but which one? Differences are crucial.

The death rate is the same for us as for anybody ... one person, one death, sooner or later.

An armed man need not fight.

Always cut the cards...and smile when you lose.

I don't know Who is cranking; I'm pleased He doesn't stop.

Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago.

Specialization is for insects... The race of man? He's a whole other creature.

Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime.

Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?

If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity.

If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called 'behaviorist psychology.'

I have never been impressed by the formal schools of ethics.

I counted to ten slowly, using binary notation.

Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.

Why don't they make more science fiction movies? The answer to any question starting, Why don't they- is almost always, Money.

If I had found out anything, it was that they could print it faster than I could study it.

Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers.

There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people. Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.

Specialisation is for insects!

The marks won't listen if it's free.

The only thing privacy laws accomplish is making the bugs smaller.

If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?

Learning . . . is - also an end in itself.

If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together.

It would take centuries and he must grow and grow and grow, but he was in no hurry--he grokked that Eternity and the ever-beautifully-changing Now were identical.

There will always be survivors.

Spacemen die if they stay in one place.

Never cast pearls before swine.

Small change can often be found under seat cushions.

Never trust machinery more complicated than a knife and fork.

Men are not potatoes!

An invention is something that was "impossible" up to then that's why governments grant patents.

He never gave up his search for the Door into Summer.

ANYTHING will burn with enough gasoline and dynamite.

Library Science is the key to all science, just as mathematics is its language - and civilization will rise or fall, depending on how well librarians do their jobs.

In this complex world, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going.

I am not going to talk about religious beliefs, but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them.

A boy who gets a C- in 'Appreciation of Television' can't be all bad.

I believe in - I am proud to belong to - the United States.

Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled.

The intelligent fights only when he must and never for sport.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." A Libertarian Movement slogan - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, 1907.