Robert A. Heinlein quotes - page 13

Robert A. Heinlein was an American science fiction author, often considered one of the "Big Three" of the genre. His novels and stories explored themes of individualism, freedom, and the future of humanity. He helped shape modern science fiction and inspired generations of readers and writers. Here are 645 of his quotes:

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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

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

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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

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

A man who bets on greed and dishonesty won't be wrong too often.

Robert A. Heinlein

I hadn't learned much in high school; I had majored in girls.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.

Robert A. Heinlein

Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth-you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers.

Robert A. Heinlein

I carried out my purpose: War and Peace, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, and so forth. Would you believe it? Something is gained in translation; the originals are even more depressing and soporific than translations. I'm not sure what purpose Russian fiction has, but it can't be entertainment.

Robert A. Heinlein

At fourteen months he began speaking in sentences, short and of his own structure, but sentences. The subjects of his conversation, or, rather, his statements, were consistently egocentric. Normal again-no one expects an infant to write essays on the beauties of altruism.

Robert A. Heinlein

At that point I realized that I had been thinking in Russian. It's a wonderful language for paranoid thoughts.

Robert A. Heinlein

The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail' is merely a pious wish; history doesn't show it.

Robert A. Heinlein

If there was anything, anything more at all, after this crazy mix-up we call living, I could feel that there might be some point to the whole frantic business, even if I did not know and could not know the full answer while I was alive.” "And suppose there was not? Suppose that when a man's body disintegrates, he himself disappears absolutely. I'm bound to say I find it a probable hypothesis.” "Well- It wouldn't be cheerful knowledge, but it would be better than not knowing. You could plan your life rationally, at least. A man might even be able to get a certain amount of satisfaction in planning things better for the future, after he's gone. A vicarious pleasure in the anticipation.

Robert A. Heinlein

Man needs freedom, but few men are so strong as to be happy with complete freedom. A man needs to be part of a group, with accepted and respected relationships. Some men join foreign legions for adventure; still more swear on a bit of paper in order to acquire a framework of duties and obligations, customs and taboos, a time to work and a time to loaf, a comrade to dispute with and a sergeant to hate-in short, to belong.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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.

Robert A. Heinlein

You know the answers, but just between ourselves, that sketch smells a bit. It's sloppy.” "I never did have any artistic talent,” Art said defensively. "I'd rather take a photograph any day.” "You've taken too many photographs, maybe. As for artistic talent, I haven't any either, but I learned to sketch. Look, Art-the rest of you guys get this, too-if you can't sketch, you can't see. If you really see what you're looking at, you can put it down on paper, accurately. If you really remember what you have looked at, you can sketch it accurately from memory.” "But the lines don't go where I intend them to.” "A pencil will go where you push it. It hasn't any life of its own. The answer is practice and more practice and thinking about what you are looking at. All of you lugs want to be scientists. Well, the ability to sketch accurately is as necessary to a scientist as his slipstick. More necessary, you can get along without a slide rule.

Robert A. Heinlein