Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.

“Why do you like to play chess so well?”
“Because it is the only thing in the world where I can see all the factors and understand all the rules.”

But there seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously — after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important … so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be both ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth. (Most of his fans were just as ignorant and unlettered; the disease was spreading.)

Convinced of their destiny to rule, they convinced themselves that the end justified the means.

“Can I trust you, my friend?”
“If you can’t, then what is my assurance worth?”

If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement.

Most things are right or wrong only in their backgrounds; few things are good or evil in themselves. But things that are right or wrong according to their culture, really are so.

No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts—he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them.

Some people insist that 'mediocre' is better than 'best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.

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

Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.

All men are created unequal.

“Jim, you’re a fool,”Bowles answered.
“No, I’m a bachelor. Why? Because I can’t stand the favorite sport of all women.”
“Which is?”
“Trying to geld stallions. Let’s get on with the job.”

Money problems can always be solved by a man not frightened by them.

There’s one thing this has taught me: You can’t enslave a free man. Only person can do that to a man is himself. No, sir—you can’t enslave a free man. The most you can do is kill him.