Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

The situation has multifarious ramifications not immediately apparent to the unassisted optic.

One time in a hundred a gun might save your life; the other ninety-nine it will just tempt you into folly.

From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.

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

If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.

As for population, every major shortcoming of our native planet could be traced to one cause: too many people, not enough planet.

Oh, you have to charge 'em, Jubal. The marks won't pay attention if it's free.

The attack should not have happened, of course. The rice farmer sergeant had been perfectly right; the Federation could not afford to risk its own great cites to punish the villagers of Venus. He was right—from his viewpoint.
A rice farmer has one logic; the men who live by and for power have another and entirely different logic. Their lives are built on tenuous assumptions, fragile as reputation; they could not afford to ignore a challenge to their power—the Federation could not afford not to punish the insolent colonists.

I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.

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

Boats and ships are female because they are beautiful, lovable, expensive—and unpredictable.

Professor Huxley introduced me to the fact that [[theology] is a study with no answers because it has no subject matter.
No subject matter? That’s right, no subject matter whatever—just colored water with artificial sweetening.

The sort of guardian you can hire is worth about as much as the sort of wife you can buy.

I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms