1,085 Quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

Are you trying to tell all of us we have a bad signal-to-noise ratio?

From somewhere, back in my youth, heard Prof say, 'Manuel, when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.' He had been teaching me something he himself did not understand very well—something in math—but had taught me something far more important, a basic principle.

Never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do.

Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.

Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Anything free costs twice as much in the long run or turns out worthless.

But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it.

I remembered a time when my grandmother had asked me to explain television to her - the guts, not the funny pictures. There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat. This be treason in an age when ignorance has come into its own and one man's opinion is as good as another's. But there it is. As Star says, the world is what it is - and doesn't forgive ignorance.

Sovereign," like "love," means anything you want it to mean; it's a word in dictionary between "sober" and "sozzled.