Robert A. Heinlein citations

Page 6

“Il est plus facile de soulever mille hommes en s'adressant à leurs préjugés que d'en convaincre un seul à l'aide de la logique.”

“Je commençai à entrevoir que la base de toute tyrannie n'est pas tant la force que le secret, la dissimulation, la censure. Lorsqu'un gouvernement — ou une Église — dit à ses sujets : « Il ne faut pas lire ceci, il ne faut pas voir cela, il est interdit de savoir telle chose », il en résulte inévitablement une tyrannie, quels qu'aient été les mobiles primitifs. Il faut bien peu de force pour contrôler un homme dont l'esprit est ainsi déformé. En revanche, nulle violence ne peut venir à bout d'un esprit libre, ni la torture, ni les bombes à fission, rien… on ne peut pas soumettre un homme libre. On ne peut que le tuer.”

“Si la parole d'un homme n'est pas une garantie suffisante, sa signature ne vaudra pas davantage”

“Les femmes et les chats ne feront que ce qui leur plaît, et les hommes et les chiens doivent se détendre et s'habituer à cette idée..”

“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.”

“Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.”

“Listen, son—most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better—and the vile ones are viler.”

“There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know.”

“Women are amazing creatures-sweet, soft, gentle, and far more savage than we are.”

“Being sorry won't get you into heaven. Get happy, son. Get that old spring into your step and stay on your toes.”

“ANYTHING will burn with enough gasoline and dynamite.”

“Budget the luxuries first.”

“I grok in fullness.”

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

“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.”