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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
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Robert A. Heinlein: 557   quotes 64   likes

Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

“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 book The Long Watch

The Long Watch (p. 214)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Death , Age , Thinking

“In the army it takes an eight-man working party to help a brass hat blow his nose.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 30 (p. 153)

Help

“You aren't really there at all. There isn't anybody but me — Jane — here alone in the dark.
I miss you dreadfully!”

Robert A. Heinlein book "—All You Zombies—"

"—All You Zombies—" (1958)

“The matter was still "Top Secret" and the subject of cabinet debates at the time of the Scranton Riot. Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough boys and girls to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 24 (p. 127)

Secret , Girl , Boy , Time

“Mr. Stone was satisfied, being sure in his heart that any person skilled with mathematical tools could learn anything else he needed to know, with or without a master.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Rolling Stones

Source: The Rolling Stones (1952), Chapter 4, “Aspects of Domestic Engineering” (p. 61)

Mathematics , Learning , Heart , Personality

“If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.”

Robert A. Heinlein

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 1

Cats

“These savages and their false gods! I grow weary of them. Yet they are necessary; the priests and the gods of slaves always fight on the side of the Masters. It is a rule of nature.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 5 (p. 62)

God , Nature , Fight , Falseness

““Can I trust you, my friend?”
“If you can’t, then what is my assurance worth?””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 4, “Boy meets Girl”, p. 48

“I found out a long time ago that you have to take some chances in this life. Otherwise you are just a vegetable, headed for the soup pot.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Red Planet

Source: Red Planet (1949), Chapter 10, “We’re Boxed In!”, p. 145

Life , Chance , Time

“I was too busy to oblige them by dying just now.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 412)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Business

“People don’t really want change, any change at all — and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But we progress, as we must — if we are to go out to the stars.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Double Star (1956)

People , Star , Change

“All normal human beings have soi-disant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts: those who know this and those who do not.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1983), Ch. XXI, p. 214

Parting

““Look, Chief—is it really necessary to kill everybody here? I don’t relish it.”
“Don’t get chicken, son,” admonished Ardmore with an edge in his voice. “This is war—and war is no joke. There is no such thing as a humane war.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 10 (p. 129)

War

“Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too.”

Robert A. Heinlein Job: A Comedy of Justice

Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)

Wisdom , Law

“I can’t evaluate my opinions of right and wrong because I learned them from my parents and haven’t lived long enough to have formed opinions in disagreement with theirs.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XI : “—citizens must protect themselves.”, p. 98

Parent , Learning

““You know, Ellie, you play this game awfully well—for a girl.”
“Thank you too much.”
“No, I mean it. I suppose girls are probably as intelligent as men, but most of them don’t act like it. I think it’s because they don’t have to. If a girl is pretty, she doesn’t have to think.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 19, “A Friend in Need” (p. 210)

Men , Girl , Game , Intelligence

“Jealousy is a disease; love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often confuses one for the other, or assumes the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. In fact they are almost incompatible; both at once produce unbearable turmoil.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

"Jubal Harshaw" in the first edition (1961); this is another line not in the "Uncut" edition of 1991 based on his original manuscripts, because this was one of the lines that Heinlein added, rather than trimmed down, during the editing process of the first edition.
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; 1991)

Love , Jealousy , Disease

“Three things only do slaves require, food, work, and their gods, and of the three their gods must never be touched, else they grow troublesome.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 5 (p. 57)

God , Food

“Sic transit gloria mundi—Tuesday is usually worse.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 12, “Halcyon” (p. 135)

“See how involved it gets? Clover, bees, nitrogen, escape speed, power, plant-animal balance, gas laws, compound interest laws, meteorology—a mathematical ecologist has to think of everything and think of it ahead of time. Ecology is explosive; what seems like a minor and harmless invasion can change the whole balance.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 12, “Bees and Zeroes” (p. 125)

Law , Mathematics , Thinking , Bee

“He had let himself be bulldozed by the odds against him. He promised himself never again to pay any attention to the odds, but only to the issues.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 4, “The Glory Road” (p. 45)

“If you’re going to be businessmen, don’t confuse the vocation with larceny.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Rolling Stones

Source: The Rolling Stones (1952), Chapter 4, “Aspects of Domestic Engineering” (p. 61)

“He’ll pay no mind to me anyhow,” MacRae answered. “That’s the healthy thing about kids.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Red Planet

Source: Red Planet (1949), Chapter 9, “Politics”, p. 133

“Don’t worry about it. There is less here than meets the eye.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVIII : L’Envoi or Rev. XXII: 13, p. 497

““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

“Methuselah’s Children” Part 2, Chapter 8, p. 667; closing words
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Tree

“I was just trying to show you,” he went on, “just how insubstantial a ‘common sense’ idea can be when you pin it down. Neither ‘common sense’ nor ‘logic’ can prove anything. Proof comes from experiment, or to put it another way, from experience, and from nothing else.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Rocket Ship Galileo

Source: Rocket Ship Galileo (1947), Chapter 10, “The Method of Science”, p. 105

Way , Idea , Sense

“Sex is rearing its interesting head.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 7 (p. 83)

Sex

““He posed me a question which I must answer correctly—else he will not co-operate.”
“Huh? What was the question?
“I’ll ask you. Martha, what is the meaning of life?”
“What! Why, what a stupid question!”
“He did not ask it stupidly.”
“It’s a psychopathic question, unlimited, unanswerable, and, in all probability, sense free.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 2, “Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief—”, p. 35; see also pages 31, 33

Life , Stupidity , Question , Sense

“Here is the wisdom of the ages: Men rule but women decide.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVII : “There are no tomorrows.”, p. 464

Wisdom , Women , Men , Age

“I venture to predict that, when we get around to reviewing their records, we will find that the rebels were almost all—all, perhaps—men who had never been outstandingly successful at anything. Their only prominence was among themselves.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 10, “—the only game in town”, p. 104

Men , Success

“Of course the intellectual class did not notice this for many decades, as an intellectual is a highly educated man who can't do arithmetic with his shoes on, and is proud of the lack.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Source: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985), p. 564

Education , Shoe

““What is a ‘hunch’?”
“Eh? It’s a belief that something is so, or isn’t so, without evidence.”
“I’d call a hunch the result of automatic reasoning below the conscious level on data you did not know you possessed.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Puppet Masters

Source: The Puppet Masters (1951), Chapter 28 (p. 149)

“It is the most indecent outfit I’ve ever seen, with no other purpose than to excite lewd, libidinous, lascivious, licentious, lecherous, lustful longings in the loins of Lotharios.”
“Isn’t that the purpose of clothing?”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

“Well...aside from protection—yes.”
Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVI : “I’m gifted with second sight.”, p. 456

Clothes

“A distance “as the crow flies” is significant only to crows.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 11, “Through the Cargo Hatch” (p. 111)

“The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, One Meter Wide and Two Meters Long.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVIII : L’Envoi or Rev. XXII: 13, p. 508

“He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Life-Line

Life-Line (p. 16)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Truth , Thinking

“Widows are far better than brides. They don't tell, they won't yell, they don't swell, they rarely smell, and they're grateful as hell.”

Robert A. Heinlein book To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Source: To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), p. 305 (1988 Ace reprint; ISBN 9780441748600)

Hell

““The Great Egg must love human beings, he made a lot of them.”
“Same argument applies to oysters, only more so.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 13, “No more privacy than a guppy in an aquarium”, p. 127

Love

“The death rate is the same for us as for anybody … one person, one death, sooner or later.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Tunnel in the Sky

Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Captain Helen Walker, Ch. 2

Death , Personality

“His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian — then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor’s aiguillette on his right shoulder.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Double Star

Double Star (1956)

“They made the predictable fuss about taking a cat into a room and an autobellhop is not responsive to bribes—hardly an improvement. But the assistant manager had more flexibility in his synapses; He listened to reason as long as it was crisp and rustled.”

Robert A. Heinlein

Source: The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 12

Cats

“Women seem to have almost unlimited capacity for forgiveness. (Since it is usually a man who needs forgiveness, this must be a racial survival trait.)”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Richard Ames; chapter 16, p. 200
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

Women , Forgiveness

“A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won’t be wrong too often.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter IX : Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws., p. 82

““Sharpie, you’ve got a one-track mind.”
“It’s the main track. Reproduction is the main track; the methods and mores of sexual copulation are the central feature of all higher developments of life.”
“You’re ignoring money and television.”
“Piffle! All human activities including scientific research are either mating dances and care of the young, or the dismal sublimations of born losers in the only game in town.””

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XI : “—citizens must protect themselves.”, p. 100

Life , Money , Game , Dance

“No philosopher allows his opinions to be swayed by facts—he would be kicked out of his guild. Theologians, the lot of them.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter VI : Are men and women one race?, p. 54

““Peewee!” I said sharply. “You're not listening.”
“What were you doing talking,” she answered reasonably, “when I wasn’t listening?””

Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Chapter 10

“I hadn’t learned much in high school; I had majored in girls.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter IX : Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws., p. 81

School , Girl , Learning

“Since when did a mathematician need any tools but his own head? Pythagoras had done well enough with a stick and a stretch of sand.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 4, “Boy meets Girl”, p. 45

“I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 401)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Motivation , Sense , Reading

“The answer to any question starting, "Why don't they—" is almost always, "Money."”

Robert A. Heinlein

Shooting Destination Moon (1950)

Money , Question