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Robert A. Heinlein
547 quotes
“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.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Discovery of the Future," Guest of Honor Speech, 3rd World Science Fiction Convention, Denver, Colorado (4 July 1941)
“How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show — it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On censorship, in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), p. 188; this may be the origin of a remark which in recent years has sometimes become misattributed to Mark Twain: Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak ju…
“Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Waldo & Magic, Inc. (1950)
“Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Revolt in 2100 (1953)
“The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Revolt in 2100 (1953), postscript
“The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Time Enough for Love: the lives of Lazarus Long; a novel (1973), p. 366
“I think that describes me, too — still a democrat not because I love the Common People and not because I think democracy is so successful (look around you) but, because in a lifetime of thinking about it and learning all that I could, I haven't found any other political organization that worked as well. As for libertarian, I've been one all my life, a radical one. You might use the term "philosophical anarchist" or "autarchist" about me, but "libertarian" is easier to define and fits well enough.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1975 Statement to Judith Merrill, who had called herself a democrat and a libertarian, stating that such terms described him as well, as quoted in Robert A. Heinlein : In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who…
“I started clipping and filing by categories on trends as early as 1930 and my "youngest" file was started in 1945. Span of time is important; the 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Happy Days Ahead" in Expanded Universe (1980)
“Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup — if any.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to "Cliff and the Calories," in Expanded Universe, (1980), pg. 355
“How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing in this world so permanent as a temporary emergency.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He decided to stay in his space suit; explosive decompression didn’t appeal to him. Come to think about it, death from old age was his choice.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“High I.Q., good compatibility index, superior education—everything that makes a person pleasant and easy and interesting to have around.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History is never surprising—after it happens.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don’t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it’s always wrong and she doesn’t mean the rest.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was too busy to oblige them by dying just now.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you seriously expect to start a rebellion with picayune stuff like that?” “It’s not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions, below the logical level. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn’t have to be a prejudice about an important matter either.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It’s just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are ‘inspired.’ Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mass psychology is not simply a summation of individual psychologies; that is a prime theorem of social psychodynamics—not just my opinion; no exception has ever been found to this theorem. It is the social mass-action rule, the mob-hysteria law, known and used by military, political, and religious leaders, by advertising men and prophets and propagandists, by rabble rousers and actors and gang leaders, for generations before it was formulated in mathematical symbols. It works.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What course of action do you favor?” “Me? Why, none. Mary, if there is any one thing I have learned in the past couple of centuries, it’s this: These things pass. Wars and depressions and Prophets and Covenants—they pass. The trick is to stay alive through them.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, maybe it’s just one colossal big joke with no point to it.” Lazarus stood up and stretched and scratched his ribs. “But I can tell you this, Andy, whatever the answers are, here’s one monkey that’s going to keep on climbing, and looking around him to see what he can see, as long as the tree holds out.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The answer to any question starting, “Why don’t they—” is almost always, “Money.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To that extent, 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.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the Third World Science Fiction Convention—Denver, 1941 (p. 157)
“That’s all there is, really, to the scientific method: to be able to distinguish fact from non-facts.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the Third World Science Fiction Convention—Denver, 1941 (p. 160)
“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery—and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone—no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (p. 185)
“Under the Communist system it is never possible to get the facts. The truth is dead—murdered—and the official version, the pravda, is that which advances the world Communist revolution.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (p. 192)
“I simply know that when the government controls every word that is printed, every idea that is taught in school, history is no longer a record of the past but is a changeable thing, whatever is convenient to the government.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (p. 192)
“A man who learns to read and write is half-way to freedom by that one fact.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (p. 196)
“So note the twentieth century down as a century of tragedy and war and death—but also please note that it is the century in which the human race finally learned to read and write. More people will learn to read and write in the next forty years than in all the thousands of years in history. I firmly predict that this will be the most important historical fact about this, our century.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention—Seattle, 1961 (pp. 196-197)
“Creativity truly cannot be divided. Every film which turns out to be an artistic success (most of them are not, as we all know too well) is invariably the creation of one man—usually the director, often the producer, once in a blue moon the writer. Creative art is never produced by the committee system. Never. Even when it may seem so from outside, even when others, perhaps thousands of others, take part in the work, it is always the genius of one man. In building a cathedral, it is the architect—not the stone cutters.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guest of Honor Speech—Rio de Janeiro Movie Festival, 1969 (p. 199)
“I don’t believe he would have conceded that he had five fingers on his right hand without an auditor to back him up.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must make the fee contingent on results.” “Did you ever hear of anyone in his right mind dealing with a wizard on any other basis?”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We white men in this country are inclined to underestimate the black man—I know I do—because we see him out of his cultural matrix. Those we know have had their own culture wrenched from them some generations back and a servile pseudo culture imposed on them by force. We forget that the black man has a culture of his own, older than ours and more solidly grounded, based on character and the power of the mind rather than the cheap, ephemeral tricks of mechanical gadgets. But it is a stern, fierce culture with no sentimental concern for the weak and the unfit, and it never quite dies out.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is true that most religions which have been offered me teach in mortality, but no the fashion in which they teach it. The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly. They did not wish me to believe.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may possibly be urged the shape of a culture—its mores, evaluations, family organizations, eating habits, living patterns, pedagogical methods, institutions, forms of government, and so forth—arise from the economic necessities of its technology.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was fairly evident that at least 90 per cent of all magic, probably more, was balderdash and sheer mystification.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stop fidgeting, Mr. Randall! I know this is difficult for your little mind, but for once you really must think about something longer than your nose and wider than your mouth believe me!”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why stay in Chicago; what did the town have to justify its existence? One decent boulevard, one decent suburb to the north, priced for the rich, two universities and a lake. As for the rest, endless miles of depressing, dirty streets. The town was one big stockyard.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sometimes think that my own weakness lies in not realizing the full depths of the weakness and stupidity of men. As a reasonable creature myself I seem to have an unfortunate tendency to expect others unlike myself to be reasonable.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once there was a race, quite unlike the human race—quite. I have no way of describing to you what they looked like or how they lived, but they had one characteristic you can understand: they were creative. The creating and enjoying of works of art was their occupation and their reason for being. I say ‘art’ advisedly, for art is undefined, undefinable, and without limits. I can use the word without fear of misusing it, for it has no exact meaning. There are as many meanings as there are artists.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But this is crazy, Pete. They must be absolute, complete and teetotal nuts.” “Any law says a cop has to be sane to be on the force?”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rotation through a fourth dimension can’t affect a three-dimensional figure any more than you can shake letters off a printed page.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source