Robert A. Heinlein: Trending quotes

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Robert A. Heinlein: 1114 quotes68 likes

“Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem. Each of us is forced to grope for a solution he can live with — in the face of a preposterous, unworkable, and evil code of so-called "morals." Most of us know the code is wrong; almost everybody breaks it. But we pay Danegeld by feeling guilty and giving lip service. Willy-nilly, the code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck.
You, too, Ben. You fancy yourself a free soul — and break that evil code. But faced with a problem in sexual ethics new to you, you tested it against that same Judeo-Christian code… so automatically your stomach did flip-flops… and you think that proves you're right and they're wrong. Faugh! I'd as lief use trial by ordeal.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

"Jubal Harshaw"
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; 1991)

“I guess I don’t understand women.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

“That’s an understatement.”
Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 19, “A Friend in Need” (p. 211)

“A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Richard Ames; chapter 9, p. 108
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

“I’m not going to give up my gun. Dad wouldn’t want me to. I’m sure of that. Anyhow, I’m licensed and I don’t have to. I’m a qualified marksman, I’ve passed the psycho tests, and I’ve taken the oath; I’m as much entitled to wear a gun as he is.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Red Planet

Source: Red Planet (1949), Chapter 4, “Lowell Academy”, p. 55

“A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Space Cadet

Source: Space Cadet (1948), Chapter 9 “Long Haul”, p. 101

““I wish Doc Pickering was here.”
“Yeah, and if fish had feet, they’d be mice.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Space Cadet

Source: Space Cadet (1948), Chapter 14 “The Natives are Friendly...”, p. 160

“People have a funny habit of taking as ‘natural’ whatever they are used to—but there hasn’t been any ‘natural’ environment, the way they mean it, since men climbed down out of trees.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 2, “The Green-Eyed Monster” (p. 21)

“Oh Max, you large lout, you arouse the eternal maternal in me.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 17, “Charity” (p. 185)

“Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Double Star (1956)

“Max opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “No.”
“Speak louder. You used a word I don’t understand.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 9, “Chartman Jones” (p. 95)

“I missed my slipstick. Dad says that anyone who can't use a slide rule is a cultural illiterate and should not be allowed to vote. Mine is a beauty — a K&E 20-inch Log-log Duplex Decitrig. Dad surprised me with it after I mastered a ten-inch polyphase. We ate potato soup that week — but Dad says you should always budget luxuries first. I knew where it was. Home on my desk.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Chapter 7

“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 book Methuselah's Children

Methuselah’s Children (p. 535)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“Any cipher can be broken, any code can be compromised. But the most exact academic knowledge of a language gives no clue to its slang, its colloquial allusions, its half statements, over statements, and inverted meanings.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 9 (p. 113)

“I think girls should be raised in the bottom of a deep, dark sack until they are old enough to know better.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 4, “Captain DeLongPre” (p. 50)

““Scheer, are you any good at counterfeiting?”
“I’ve never tried it, sir.”
“No time like the present. Every man needs an alternative profession.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 6 (p. 72)

“Mr. Jones, has it ever occurred to you, the world being what it is, that women sometimes prefer not to appear too bright?”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 19, “A Friend in Need” (p. 211)

“Wherever there is power and mass to manipulate, Man can live.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Rolling Stones

Source: The Rolling Stones (1952), Chapter 16, “Rock City” (p. 208)

“I’m not trying to frighten you, but only a fool makes predictions based on ignorance; I am not that sort of fool.”

Robert A. Heinlein book I Will Fear No Evil

Source: I Will Fear No Evil (1970), Chapter 12, p. 177

“Pioneers need good neighbors.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 14, “Land of My Own” (p. 147)

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 10, “While I Was Musing the Fire Burned” (p. 113)