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Robert A. Heinlein Quotes
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Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", his sometimes controversial works continue to have an influential effect on the genre, and on modern culture more generally.

Heinlein became one of the first American science fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors. Among his most notable works are Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, which helped create the space marine and mecha archetypes, and the libertarian novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

A writer also of numerous science fiction short stories, Heinlein was one of a group of writers who came to prominence under the editorship of John W. Campbell at his Astounding Science Fiction magazine; however, Heinlein denied that Campbell influenced his writing to any great degree.

Within the framework of his science fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought. He also speculated on the influence of space travel on human cultural practices.

Heinlein was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master in 1974. He won Hugo Awards for four of his novels; in addition, fifty years after publication, five of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos"—awards given retrospectively for works that were published before the Hugo Awards came into existence. In his fiction, Heinlein coined terms that have become part of the English language, including "grok", "waldo", and "speculative fiction", as well as popularizing existing terms like "TANSTAAFL", "pay it forward", and "space marine". He also anticipated mechanical computer aided design with "Drafting Dan" and described a modern version of a waterbed in his novel The Door into Summer, though he never patented or built one. In the first chapter of the novel Space Cadet he anticipated the cell-phone, 35 years before Motorola invented the technology. Several of Heinlein's works have been adapted for film and television.

✵ 7. July 1907 – 8. May 1988  •  Other names Robert Heinlein, Роберт Энсон Хайнлайн
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Robert A. Heinlein: 557 quotes68 likes

Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

“Anything which is physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo of small minds.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

“An armed society is a polite society.”

Robert A. Heinlein

“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'.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

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

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“Everybody lies about sex.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

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

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast

“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!”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Source: Double Star

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

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

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“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.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 2, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (p. 23)

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

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

“Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe---in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Source: The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die… and accepts his sentence undismayed.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”

Robert A. Heinlein

“I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey…”

Robert A. Heinlein book Glory Road

Source: Glory Road

“His older self had taught his younger self a language which the older self knew because the younger self, after being taught, grew up to be the older self and was, therefore, capable of teaching.”

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

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

Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel

“Women talk when they want to. Or don't.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

“Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse”

Robert A. Heinlein

“He's as weird as snake's suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss, too.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“Madam, the commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Star Beast

Source: The Star Beast (1954), Chapter 14, “Destiny? Fiddlesticks!” (p. 219)

“When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Source: The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

“We came here for a small, informal meeting. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants.”

Robert A. Heinlein

“The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with those 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 book Expanded Universe

Source: "The Happy Days Ahead" in Expanded Universe (1980)
Context: 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.

“… a book need never die and should not be killed; books were the immortal part of man.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farnham's Freehold

Source: Farnham's Freehold

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

“In terms of morals there is no such thing as ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“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”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

“Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

“Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?" "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Richard Ames; chapter 3, p. 27
Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)