Robert A. Heinlein cytaty

strona 12

„Nie tłumaczcie komputerów laikom. Prościej wytłumaczyć seks dziewicy.”

„Istota ludzka powinna umieć zmieniać pieluszki, zaplanować inwazję, zarżnąć wieprza, sterować statkiem, zaprojektować budynek, napisać sonet, prowadzić księgę rachunkową, zbudować mur, nastawić złamanie, pocieszyć umierającego, dawać rozkazy, przyjmować rozkazy, działać w grupie, działać samemu, rozwiązywać równania, analizować nowe problemy, roztrząsać nawóz, zaprogramować komputer, ugotować smaczny posiłek, walczyć skutecznie, umrzeć bohatersko. Specjalizacja jest dla insektów.”

„Nigdy nie odwołuj się do lepszej natury człowieka – być może wcale jej nie ma. Zawsze podkreślaj, że masz na względzie jego interes.”

„Demokracja to cztery wilki i owca, głosujące o obiedzie.”

„Demokracja nie może się sprawdzić. Wszędzie są matematycy, wieśniacy i zwierzęta – tak więc demokracja, teoria oparta na założeniu, że matematycy i wieśniacy są równi, nigdy się nie sprawdza. Mądrości nie można sumować – jej maksimum mierzy się mądrością najbystrzejszego członka danej grupy.”

„Na pewno nigdy nie znajdziecie wroga w matce, jeśli w porę pochwalicie jej dziecko.”

„Pokolenie, które ignoruje historię, nie ma przeszłości – ani przyszłości.”

„Komitet to stworzenie o 3 lub więcej nogach i bez mózgu.”

„Bądź czujna, dopóki nie wiesz, którędy uciekać.”

“As for population, every major shortcoming of our native planet could be traced to one cause: too many people, not enough planet.”

“Every technology goes through three stages: first a crudely simple and quite unsatisfactory gadget; second, an enormously complicated group of gadgets designed to overcome the shortcomings of the original and achieving thereby somewhat satisfactory performance through extremely complex compromise; third, a final stage of smooth simplicity and efficient performance based on correct understanding of natural laws and proper design therefrom.”

“I glanced at the ring on my finger.
The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever …  I know where I came from — but where did all you zombies come from?”

“We don’t have to be convincing—not in the sense of getting converts. Real converts might prove to be a nuisance. We just have to be convincing enough to look like a legitimate religion to our overlords. And that doesn’t have to be very convincing. All religions look equally silly from the outside.”

“But as grandpop always said, there are just three ways to get ahead; sweat and genius, getting born into the right family, or marrying into it.”

“There is no subject inappropriate for scientific research. Johann, we’ve let you fellows have a monopoly of such matters for too long. The most serious questions in the world have been left to faith or speculation. It is time for scientists to cope with them, or admit that science is no more than pebble counting.”

“I don’t think Father Hugo is any more mistaken than the most learned theologian and he might be closer to the truth. Jacob, I don’t think anyone knows Who’s in charge.”

“Daddy says that, in a dilemma, it is helpful to change any variable, then reexamine the problem.”

“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.”

“I guess I don’t understand women.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Pioneers need good neighbors.”

“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.”

“Boats and ships are female because they are beautiful, lovable, expensive—and unpredictable.”