Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than the man on the spot.

Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.

What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

“I guess I don’t understand women.”
“That’s an understatement.”

The future is better than the past. Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands...with tools...with horse sense and science and engineering.

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

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

A baby is lots more fun than differential equations.

Any organization calling itself “The Friends of This or That” always consisted of someone with an axe to grind, plus the usual assortment of prominent custard heads and professional stuffed shirts.

I think the major problem in growing up is to become sophisticated without becoming cynical.

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

On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Serbia, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated. He was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an otherwise useless piece of royalty, and to this day I have never been able to understand why this event could cause Germany to invade Belgium a month later.

I knew that the stupidest students, the silliest professors, and the worst bull courses are concentrated in schools of education.

You’re not stupid, Richard, just spiritual.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.