robert heinlein

“Writing can be learned, but not taught.”

“when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.”

“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.”

“Specialization is for insects.”

“Apparently Blank thinks I am a nice accommodating guy, please explain to him that I am a son of a bitch”

“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.”

“I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.”

“One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.”

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.”

“It's better to copulate than not.”

“ANYTHING will burn with enough gasoline and dynamite.”

“Men are not potatoes!”

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”

“A community where everyone is a ruthless murderer, with handy access to death-dealing devices, is a very polite community.”

“Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.”

“There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured...the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked to him with a stick. If you disturb the patient at such time, he may break into tears or become violent.”

“The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

“When one teaches, two learn.”

“It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person's behavior. The most you or any leader can do is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”

“If a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. (Lazarus Long)”

“Yield to temptation...it may not pass your way again!”

“Love" is a that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own...Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy”

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”

“Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.”

“Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”

“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!”

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