Robert A. Heinlein

“It's a man's business to be what he is, and to be it in style.”

“I came, I saw, she conquered."The original Latin seems to have been garbled.”

“The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but -- " is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.”

“Everybody lies about sex.”

“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.”

“Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. [He is also a fool.]”

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

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

“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?”

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

“I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food.”

“Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.”

“Nothing gives life more zest that running for your life.”

“Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.”

“If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.”

“No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain.”

“But one way or another competing and weeding takes place . . . or a race goes downhill.”

“Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.”

“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”

“Oh, you have to charge 'em, Jubal. The marks won't pay attention if it's free.”

“His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.”

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”

“His claim to Mars is lawyers' hogwash; as a lawyer myself I need not respect it.”

“I'm always suspicious of disinterested interest.”

“The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge . . . and stronger.”

“Straining at gnats and swallowing camels is a required course in all law schools.”

“Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.”

“In the twentieth century, nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America---and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.”

“The country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degrees---its religious revivals were often hysterical in a fashion almost Dionysian.”

“Dorcas, you already reek like a Marseilles cat house; don't wheedle Mike for more stinkum.”

“And suddenly I knew I was people and could not stop laughing.”

“Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”

“English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.”

“Secrecy begets tyranny.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.”

“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.”

“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. ”

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.”

“An armed society is a polite society.”

“The golden sunshine of Italy congealed into tears. Here's to alcoholic brotherhood ... much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort.”

“A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.”

“Thinking doesn't pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.”

“Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.”

“From somewhere, back in my youth, heard Prof say, 'Manuel, when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.' He had been teaching me something he himself did not understand very well—something in math—but had taught me something far more important, a basic principle.”

“Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.”

“The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.”