Quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. . . . A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individuals instinct to survive--and nowhere else!--and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race . . . .The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.

You. What is the moral difference, ifany, between the soldier and the civilian?The difference, I answered carefully, lies in the field of civicvirtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the bodypolitic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life.The civilian does not.

Property is not the natural and obvious and inevitable concept that most people think it is.

Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in measurements when he did not know what he was measuring.

Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

Good!” the creature echoed. “Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like breakfast?”All symbols were in Smith’s vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not “feel like” food. Nor had he any warning that he might be selected for such honor.

The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it.

Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.

Support for the arts -- merde! A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat driver” syndrome.

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.

The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you.

Im too much old-timer to be rude to a woman no matter what - they have so much of what we have none of.

I waited. Women talk when they want to. Or dont.

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.

Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. ~Jubal Harshaw

The Universe was a damned silly place at best . . . but the least likely explanation for its existence was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that some abstract somethings just happened to be some atoms that just happened to get together in configurations which just happened to look like consistent laws and then some of these configurations just happened to possess self-awareness and that two such just happened to be the Man from Mars and the other a bald-headed old coot with Jubal himself inside. No, Jubal would not buy the just happened theory, popular as it was with men who called themselves scientists. 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.

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

You cant believe what a lovely planet we have until you see her from outside.