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Home
Authors
Robert A. Heinlein
American
Writer
About the author
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Will
#Law
#Power
#Religion
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Man
#Word
#Engineering
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#End
#May
#Result
#Government
#Church
#Tyranny
#Oppression
#Motives
#Forbidden
One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Authority
#Science
#History
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Government
#Universe
#Sense
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Life
#Being
#Fortune
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Want
#People
#Conservative
#Race
#Desire
#Liberal
Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Love
#Exercise
#Sex
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Science
#Difference
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Life
#Irony
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Man
#Theology
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Help
#Midnight
#Theology
There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Food
#Solution
#Science
#Writers
#Isolation
They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Want
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Time
#Space
#Travel
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Will
#Men
#Idea
#Women
#Dogs
#Cats
#Relax
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Writing
Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#May
#Temptation
#Yield
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Freedom
#Peace
It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Beliefs
#Gossip
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Authority
To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#World
#Fantasy
By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Flowers
#Humanity
Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Worry
#Theory
A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Society
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Life
#May
#Society
#Manners
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Love
#May
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Right
#Being
Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Fun
#March
#Events
Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Children
Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
Never insult anyone by accident.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Insult
#Accident
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.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Rules
I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
I never learned from a man who agreed with me.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Man
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Stupidity
#Power
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Tax
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own... 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.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Love
#Mistakes
#Disease
#Mind
#Happiness
#Jealousy
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Self
#Insecurity
#Jealousy
For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.
Robert A. Heinlein,
American
Writer
#Civilization
#Politeness