Robert A. Heinlein: Trending quotes (page 9)

“Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not - and a puppy has none. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind.”

“An armed society is a polite society.”

“One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.”

“A managed democracy is a wonderful thing… for the managers… and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible'.”

“If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long.”

“In the twentieth century, nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America---and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.”

“Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination-- devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues -- which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.”

“Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia - the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death… before they breed more hemophiliacs.”

“One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast.”

“Everybody lies about sex.”

“Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

“Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings… but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.”

“Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?”

“A slave cannot be freed, save he do it himself. Nor can you enslave a free man; the very most you can do is kill him!”

“Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part… and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.”

“Limiting the freedom of news 'just a little bit' is in the same category with the classic example 'a little bit pregnant.”

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it’s done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.”

“There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured.”

“Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.”