Robert A. Heinlein

“Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.”

“Sense is never common.”

“Cast me into a dungeon;, burn me at the state, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives -- but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”

“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.”

“For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet's censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked, contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything---you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

“May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.”

“Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?--TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature--a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.”

“Civilians are like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.But you can't buy fighting spirit.”

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.”

“If we can use an H-bomb--and as you said it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around--isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed . . . and even losing the war . . . when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?'Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, 'Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.'Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, 'Speak up!'I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term.'I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer . . . and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?'What? Sure--yes, sir.'Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own--unofficial--views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cuts its head off?'Why . . . no, sir!'Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how--or why--he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people--"older and wiser heads," as they say--supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you--then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.”

“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.”

“I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting.”

“He's an honest politician--he stays bought.”

“Do-gooding is like treating hemophilia - the real cure is to let hemophiliacs bleed to death...before they breed more hemophiliacs.”

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

“People simplify 'Apollonian' into 'mild', and 'calm', and 'cool'. But 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian' are two sides of one coin--a nun kneeling in her cell, holding perfectly still, can be in ecstacy more frenzied than any priestess of Pan Priapus celebrating the vernal equinox.”

“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 the 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.”

“I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey...”

“الطيبة وحدها لا تكفي. لا بد من حكمة باردة قاسية للطيبة كي تحقق الخير. الطيبة بلا حكمة تؤدي حتما إلى الشر.”

“Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?" "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady.”

“There is no safety this side of the grave”

“God created men to test the souls of women.”

“Every general prohibition creates its bootleggers.”

“I grok in fullness.”

“Thou art god, I am god. All that groks is god.”

“Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.”

“Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.”

“Have you ever noticed how much they look like orchids? lovely!”

“Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling - oh, Harshaw concluded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels. But simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost! (96)”

“Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse,”

“We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in self-protection”

“Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a corner and watch them going past is delightful. They don't walk. At least not what we do when we walk. I don't know how to describe it, but it's much more complex and utterly delightful. They don't move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions . . . and all of it graceful.”

“If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

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

“Any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together.”

“Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.”

“If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity.”

“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!”

“Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.”

“The very idea that the Chief would let anybody expose himself to danger in his place is-well, I ought to slap your face; that's what I ought to do!”

“I was no fool; I was aware that when another man is too anxious to force money on one, it is time to examine the cards, for there is almost certainly something illegal, or dangerous, or both, involved in the matter.”

“My vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free.”

“He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once.”

“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.”

“Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe---in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.”

“Many older physicians had gone to their graves calling Pasteur a liar, a fool, or worse---and without examining evidence which their “common sense” told them was impossible.”

“The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for---if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.”

“All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.”

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”