Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

 

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Robert A. Heinlein Quotes 1-20 out of 24
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An armed society is a polite society.
Limiting the freedom of news ‘just a little bit’ is in the same category within the classic example ‘a little bit pregnant.’
Love your country, but never trust its government.
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily.  All other "sins" are invented nonsense.  (Hurting yourself is not a sin - just stupid.)
The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.
The whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you may 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.
...[A] fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously—after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.
Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.
Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
The human race divides itself politically into those who want to be controlled, and those who have no such desire.
In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is to never let them find out.
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.
Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
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