Robert A. Heinlein Quotes (138 Quotes)

Because the world has gone nutty and art always paints the spirit of its times

That's a subject as safe as being in favor of Christmas.

He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.

Anything which is physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo of small minds.

The bugs are not like us. The Pseudo-Arachnids arenÆt even like spiders. They are arthropods who happen to look like a madmanÆs conception of a giant intelligent spider, but their organization, psychological and economic, is more like that of ants or termites; they are communal entities, the ultimate dictatorship of the hive.

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.

Being sorry won't get you into heaven. Get happy, son. Get that old spring into your step and stay on your toes.

The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge . . . and stronger.

He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once.

Certain types of loudmouthism should be a capital offense among decent people.

There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.

Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.

But one way or another competing and weeding takes place . . . or a race goes downhill.

The golden sunshine of Italy congealed into tears. Here's to alcoholic brotherhood ... much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort.

He's an honest politician--he stays bought.

Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.

Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.

Christ was crucified for preaching without a police permit

The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.

He's as weird as snake's suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss, too.

Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor.

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.

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.

Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.

The verdict to be passed on the third planet around Sol was never in doubt.

Any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together.

His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.

Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.