Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the
idea.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a
ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort
the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.
– Robert A. Heinlein
In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia
until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
– Robert A. Heinlein
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty
is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that
debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it
may be, but the reward is self-respect.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Television leaves no external scars.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do
something.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A desire not to butt into other people’s business is at least eighty percent of all human
wisdom.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Boats and ships are female because they are beautiful, lovable, expensive – and
unpredictable.
– Robert A. Heinlein
You’re in bad shape when your emotions force you into acts which you know are foolish.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual” – find out how he feels about
astrology.
– Robert A. Heinlein
The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God
of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His
creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this
flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the
expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Yield to temptation… it may not pass your way again.
– Robert A. Heinlein
I came, I saw, she conquered. The original Latin seems to have been garbled.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for
others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a
riot.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Belief gets in the way of learning.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Thinking doesn’t pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.
– Robert A. Heinlein
May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Cats have no sense of humor, they have terribly inflated egos, and they are very touchy.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Once you can honestly say, “I don’t know,” then it becomes possible to get at the truth.
– Robert A. Heinlein
The best things in history are accomplished by people who get “tired of being shoved
around.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
Sex, whatever else it is, is an athletic skill. The more you practice, the more you can, the
more you want to, the more you enjoy it, the less it tires you.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
– Robert A. Heinlein
When one teaches, two learn.
– Robert A. Heinlein
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 – in fact, they are
almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do,
which isn’t often, on their own, the hard way.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector – and miss.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Do this. Don’t do that. Stay back in line. Where’s tax receipt? Fill out form. Let’s see license.
Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back
and get stamped. Drop dead – but first get permit.
– Robert A. Heinlein
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.
– Robert A. Heinlein
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his
acts with his life.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not
survive; they wind up as meat for leopards.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
– Robert A. Heinlein
At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not
come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that “news” is not
something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he
himself is no different – in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal
resourcefulness.
– Robert A. Heinlein
No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.
– Robert A. Heinlein
There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his
fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are
merely overgrown children, can never be anything else.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest
gives you more leverage.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any
government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not
read, this you must not know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy
the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this
fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not
the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can
do is kill him.
– Robert A. Heinlein
If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is
invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
– Robert A. Heinlein
We may eliminate death someday but I doubt if we’ll ever eliminate taxes.
– Robert A. Heinlein
It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.
– Robert A. Heinlein
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.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.
– Robert A. Heinlein
“Die trying” is the proudest human thing.
– Robert A. Heinlein
I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it’s
better to laugh than cry.
– Robert A. Heinlein
People don’t really want change, any change at all – and xenophobia is very deep-rooted. But
we progress, as we must – if we are to go out to the stars.
– Robert A. Heinlein
You live and learn. Or you don’t live long.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It’s a waste of time and besides it annoys the pig.
– Robert A. Heinlein
If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.
– 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. The next higher level is to work, fight, and
sometimes die for your own immediate family.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
– 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.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Another ingredient in a happy marriage: Budget the luxuries first!
– Robert A. Heinlein
Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up
with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to
men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They
should never settle merely for equality. For women, “equality” is a disaster.
– Robert A. Heinlein
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The
brave ones are braver, the good ones are better – and the vile ones are viler, for that
matter.
– Robert A. Heinlein
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Consider the black widow spider. It’s a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the
prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent-leather finish and its red hourglass
trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much
power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.
– Robert A. Heinlein
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.
– Robert A. Heinlein
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely
because you think it would be good for him.
– Robert A. Heinlein
God created men to test the souls of women.
– Robert A. Heinlein
There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with
a statistical universe.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it’s more sanitary.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and
evil and self-serving men.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and
morals of a spoiled child.
– Robert A. Heinlein
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
– Robert A. Heinlein
A government is a living organism. Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind,
unreasoned instinct to survive. You hit it, it will fight back.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Being privileged to work hard for long hours at something you think is worth doing is the best
kind of play.
– Robert A. Heinlein
When you’re rich, you don’t have friends; you just have endless acquaintances.
– Robert A. Heinlein
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?
– Robert A. Heinlein
The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone
younger.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance.
– Robert A. Heinlein