Robert A. Heinlein Quotes
Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.
Nobody has ever seen an electron. Nor a thought. You can't see a thought, you can't measure, weigh, nor taste it- but thoughts are the most real things in the Galaxy.
Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it - especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.
Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius.
Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn - when they do, which isn't often - on their own, the hard way.
Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.
You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but--if you will pardon my saying so--all wrong.
Physicians had gone to their graves calling Pasteur a liar, a fool, or worse—without examining evidence which their “common sense” told them was impossible.
Spacemen - men who work in space, pilots and jetmen and astrogators and such - are men who like a few million miles of elbow room.
It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code... obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.
Boats and ships are female because they are beautiful, lovable, expensive and unpredictable.
I think the major problem in growing up is to become sophisticated without becoming cynical.
If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic,' examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!
All normal human beings have soi-disant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts: those who know this and those who do not.
There ought not to be anything in the whole universe that man can't poke his nose into-that's the way we're built and I assume that there's some reason for that.
Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe---in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.
Must be yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please.
I had taken a partner once before—but, damnation, no matter how many times you get your fingers burned, you have to trust people. Otherwise you are a hermit in a cave, sleeping with one eye open.
The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger.
Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.
...revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science for the few who are competent to practice it. It depends on correct organisation and above all, on communications.
It seems to me that the secret of true happiness in life is to know what you are and then be content to be that, in style, head up and proud, and not yearn to be something else.
Whoring is like military service...okay in the upper brackets, not so good lower down.
Any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together.
Please don't invent a debt that does not exist, or next you will be trying to feel gratitude - and that is the treacherous first step toward complete moral degradation.
Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance --
I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey.
Being sorry won't get you into heaven. Get happy, son. Get that old spring into your step and stay on your toes.
Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).