Last Updated on 21 June 2024

Quotes from Robert Heinlein (1907-1988)

• Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.
• Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
• A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.
• A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
• Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)
• Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.
• Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.
• A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.
• A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
• The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
• I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. 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.
• Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
• In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
• It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.
• Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
• Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
• Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
• Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
• Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
• One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering.
• One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
• Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
• Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful —just stupid.)
• There are perhaps 5% of the population that simply can’t think. There are another 5% who can, and do. The remaining 90% can think, but don’t.
• There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
• The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.
• When one teaches, two learn.
• Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
• You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.