Robert A. Heinlein

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Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988) Science Fiction Writer

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Robert A. Heinlein in 1976

1 Sourced
2 Attributed
3 References
4 External links

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Sourced

But I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.
- Life Line, 1939

Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.
- Red Planet

There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people. Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.
- Double Star

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
- Logic of Empire (1941)

Listen, son. Most women are damn fools and children. But they've got more range then we've got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better — and the vile ones are viler, for that matter.
- The Puppet Masters (1951), chapter 11
- the "Old Man" to "Sam", when discussing "Mary"

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 girls and boys 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.
- The Puppet Masters (1951), chapter 24

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
- Revolt in 2100 (1953), postscript

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

The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.
- The Man Who Sold the Moon p.188

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.
- To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987)

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.
- Assignment in Eternity

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Have Space Suit Will Travel (1958)

We lived like that "Happy Family" you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.

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Starship Troopers (1959)

See also Starship Troopers.

There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.

Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.

The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation.

That old saw about "to understand all is to forgive all" is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand them, the more you loathe them.

Morals— all correct moral laws— derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

Correct morality can only be derived from what man is—not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.

"'Violence never settles anything.'

'So? I'm sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that.'"

"The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion...and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself--ultimate cost for perfect value."

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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

"tanstaafl" […] There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
- chapter 11, p. 162 <ref name="moon-harsh">Heinlein, Robert A. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966). 1st Orb edition, 1997, 382 pp. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. ISBN 0-312-86355-1.</ref>
- Though some have credited Heinlein with this phrase because he uses it prominently in this novel, it actually dates to the late 1930s, and even the acronym "TANSTAAFL" is recorded to have been in use as early as 1849. ^{[citation needed]}

Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.
- chapter 14, p. 205 <ref name="moon-harsh"/>

Comrade, that committee was too small, its chairman too intelligent; there was always the hazard that they might offer an acceptable compromise — that first day there was a grave danger of it. Had we been able to force our case before the Grand Assembly there would have been no danger of intelligent action.
- chapter 20, p. 276 <ref name="moon-harsh"/>

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Time Enough For Love (1973)

Most, if not all, of these quotations are of the recurring Heinlein character "Lazarus Long", and most were labeled as from the "Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long". Many of these were later published as a separate poster book, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.

$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000—by which time it will be worth nothing.

A "pacifist male" is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger.

A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.

A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

A motion to adjourn is always in order.

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual"—find out how he feels about astrology.

A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.

A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.

All men are created unequal.

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can—and must—be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly—and no doubt will keep on trying.

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.

Always store beer in a dark place,

An elephant. A mouse built to government specifications.

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure "good" government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare—most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat-driver syndrome."

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man—man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.

Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.

Cheops' Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.

Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)

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.

Dear, don't bore him with trivia or burden him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never to tell him anything he does not need to know.

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Everybody lies about sex.

Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent—it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e., none to speak of.

I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.

If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another—but which one? Differences are crucial.

If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called "behaviorist psychology."

If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

If the universe has any purpose more important than topping a woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help, I've never heard of it.

If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people.

If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.

In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master."

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.

It is better to copulate than never.

It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.

It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.

Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of wrongdoing—and you don't have to go home in the cold. But it's lonely.

Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.

Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.

Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.

Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.

Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs—sex especially. When they are growng up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes—but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?)

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

"No man is an island—" Much as we may feel and act as Individuals, our race is -a single organism, always growing and branching—which must be pruned regularly to be healthy.
This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limit always dies in its own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth.
Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods—killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of "He's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be."
But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right.
But I don't have to like it—and I don't.

No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it." Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.

Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman's breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.

Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy"is the most amazing—with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.

One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasanter—and much safer.

People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.

Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

Rub her feet.

Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense.

Small change can often be found under seat cushions.

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

The first time I was a drill instructor I was too inexperienced for the job—the things I taught those lads must have got some of them killed. War is too serious a matter to be taught by the inexperienced.

The more you love, the more you can love—and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.

The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must—" designates some thing that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change clichés and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.

The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must—never for sport.

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy — a pregnant woman.

The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute—get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature"—but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-face absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race—i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women—it strikes me as a fine arrangement -and perfectly "natural" Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnaturaI" and a "despoiling of Nature."

There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?

There is no such thing as "social gambling." Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it—or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice—don't gamble.

There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck."

What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!

What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history"—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

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 else where.

When the need arises—and it does—you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out—that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.

Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster.

Writing, is not necessarily something to be ashamed of—but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

You live and learn. Or you don't live long.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate—and quickly.

A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased – he hates all creative people equally.

Do not confuse 'duty' with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants 'just a few minutes of your time, please - this won't take long.' Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time - and squawk for more!
So learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is 'expected' of you.)

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"The Pragmatics of Patriotism" (1973)

Quotations from Heinlein's address at the U.S. Naval Academy, April 5, 1973

I now define "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival." I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word "moral" to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define "behavior that tends toward extinction" as being "moral" without stretching the word "moral" all out of shape.

Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college —and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child… and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.

The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your own kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called "patriotism."

Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind.

Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on… as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're through! You join Tyrannosaurus Rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.

"Patriotism" is a way of saying "Women and children first." And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely.

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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)

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.)
- chapter 16, p. 200 <ref name="cat">Heinlein, Robert. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985). 382 pp. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-13103-5.</ref>

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

Nothing gives life more zest, than running for your life.

How can you expect to argue with a woman, who won't?

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Attributed

A generation without history has no past— and no future.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.

Natural laws have no pity.

Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.

An armed society is a polite society

Free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events.

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

Beauty is not diminished by being shared.

In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is never to let them find out.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy— and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

Yield to temptation— it may not pass your way again.

Belief gets in the way of learning.

Learning isn't a means to an end; it is an end in itself.

No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. He simply follows the eleventh commandment. (Note: 11th commandment according to Heinlein: Don't get yourself caught!)

History does not record anywhere a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

Death is the lot of all of us and the only way the human race has ever conquered death is by treating it with contempt.

Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do.

Rules serve best when broken.

The plural of spouse is spice.

The meek shall inherit the earth, a 6 foot plot above them.

Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil.

Audacity, always audacity. When I was in high school, I won a debate by quoting an argument from the British Colonial Shipping Board. The opposition was unable to refute me - because there never was a British Colonial Shipping Board.
- Jubal Harshaw (from Stranger in a Strange Land)

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