1,085 Quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination – devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues – which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.

The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.

Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal – else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.

Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.

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

Paymasters come in only two sizes: one sort shows you where the book says that you can’t have what you’ve got coming to you; the second sort digs through the book until he finds a paragraph that lets you have what you need even if you don’t rate it.

Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don’t get any argument but you don’t get results either.

People who are busy and happy don’t write diaries; they are too busy living.

The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force.