Robert A. Heinlein quotes - page 15

Just now I'm writing a series of oh-so-respectful articles about the private life of the Prophet and his acolytes and attending priests, how many servants they have, how much it costs to run the Palace, all about the fancy ceremonies and rituals, and such junk. All of it perfectly true, of course, and told with unctuous approval. But I lay it on a shade too thick. The emphasis is on the jewels and the solid gold trappings and how much it all costs, and I keep telling the yokels what a privilege it is for them to be permitted to pay for such frippery and how flattered they should feel that God's representative on earth lets them take care of him. (Robert A. Heinlein)
They made a good team. As a matter of fact their talents were not too far apart; the artist is two-thirds artisan and the artisan has essentially the same creative urge as the artist. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
I'm going to put it to you straight. Never mind about being chief engineer of a planet; these days even a farmer needs the best education he can get. Without it he's just a country bumpkin, a stumbling peasant, poking seeds into the ground and hoping a miracle will make them grow. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
You put me in mind of a case I ran into in the American West. A respected citizen shot a professional gunthrower in the back. When asked why he didn't give the other chap a chance to draw, the survivor said, ‘Well, he's dead and I'm alive and that's how I wanted it to be.' Jamie, if you use sportsmanship on a known scamp, you put yourself at a terrible disadvantage. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Let me add,” he went on, "that since I handle secret and most-secret despatches, I know things that I don't know, if I make my meaning clear. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
I wish they wouldn't hold mornings so early. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
As I once heard Andrew-that's my disappearing brother-say: ‘Life consist in accommodating oneself to the Universe.' Although the rest of our family has never taken that view. We believe if forcing the Universe to accommodate itself to us. It's all a question of which one is to be master. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
I'm not raising any kids to be radioactive dust. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
It's impossible for a woman to lay it on too thick with a man. If you tell a man he's eight feet tall and say it often enough, with your eyes wide and a throb in your voice, he'll start stooping to go through seven-foot doors. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
But what you're talking about means giving up all that-just the noble primitive, simple and self-sufficient. He's going to chop down a tree-who sold him the ax? He wants to shoot a deer-who made his gun?...There never was and there never could be a noble simple creature such as you described. He'd be an ignorant savage, with dirt on his skin and lice in his hair. He would work sixteen hours a day to stay alive at all. He'd sleep in a filthy hut on a dirt floor. And his point of view and his mental processes would be just two jumps above an animal. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
For three hundred years the race had glazed windows. Then they shut themselves up in little air-conditioned boxes and stared at silly television pictures instead. One might as well be on Luna. (Robert A. Heinlein)
Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It's just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are ‘inspired.' Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
You can only grieve so much; after that it's self pity. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
What of it? I'd still be myself. I don't care what people think.” "You're mistaken, son. To believe that you can live free of your cultural matrix is one of the easiest fallacies and has some of the worst consequences. You are part of your group whether you like it or not, and you are bound by its customs. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Hans had courage to burn. If he had been willing to knuckle under to the Nazis he would have stayed at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. But Hans was a scientist. He wouldn't trim his notion of truth to fit political gangsters. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Theobald ignored him. He could be deaf when he chose; he seemed to find it particularly difficult to hear the word "No.”. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Mary? After all, what was she? Just another babe. True, I was disgusted with her for letting herself be used as bait. It was all right for her to use her femaleness as an agent; the Section had to have female operatives. There have always been female spies, and the young and pretty ones have always used the same tools. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Oh, we get along. She lets me have my own way, and later I find out I've done just what she wanted me to do. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Don took it and said, "Uh, thanks! That's awfully kind of you. I'll pay it back, first chance.” "Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.”. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
So-called instincts are instructive, Felix. They point to survival values. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. (Robert A. Heinlein)
Life is not merely persistent, as Jock puts it; life is explosive. The basic theorem of population mathematics to which there has never been found an exception is that population increases always, not merely up to the extent of the food supply, but beyond it, to the minimum diet that will sustain life-the ragged edge of starvation. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
I trust that I am honest with myself. I know that I am not very sociable and I expect to go on being so; a man capable of creative work has no time to spare for fools who would like to visit. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
From my point of view it is better to be alive and young again, and broke, than it is to be the richest corpse in Forest Lawn. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
I am learning that we still have things to learn. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein