Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. ~Jubal Harshaw - Robert A. Heinlein
Once can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think. - Robert A. Heinlein
The less respect an older person deserves the more certain he is to demand it from anyone younger. - Robert A. Heinlein
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive. - Robert A. Heinlein
One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, 'What's in it for me? - Robert A. Heinlein
I've never been able to understand 'faith' myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones - by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether universe or a smaller one. - Robert A. Heinlein
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - Robert A. Heinlein
Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil. - Robert A. Heinlein
May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live. - Robert A. Heinlein
She found as always that words on paper proved themselves; they were so beautifully true. - Robert A. Heinlein
One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think. - Robert A. Heinlein
Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert A. Heinlein
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. - Robert A. Heinlein
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. - Robert A. Heinlein
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert A. Heinlein
Belief gets in the way of learning. - Robert A. Heinlein
Could dump two Chinee down in one of our maria and they would get rich selling rocks to each other while raising twelve kids. Then a Hindu would sell retail stuff he got from them wholesale--below cost at a fat profit. We got along. - Robert A. Heinlein
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. - Robert A. Heinlein
A thing can be fine on paper but utterly crummy in the field. - Robert A. Heinlein
You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. - Robert A. Heinlein
Science fiction" means different things to different people. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra"—in which case the term science fiction has piled up a lot of expensive overtime. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run. - Robert A. Heinlein
A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. - Robert A. Heinlein
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. - Robert A. Heinlein
Anything which is physically possible can be made financially possible, if the people of a state desire it. - Robert A. Heinlein
The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason - but one cannot have both. - Robert A. Heinlein
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. - Robert A. Heinlein
A paradox may be paradoctored. - Robert A. Heinlein
If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people. -- Lazarus Long. - Robert A. Heinlein
Does history record any case in which the majority was right? - Robert A. Heinlein
Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is-- so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group. - Robert A. Heinlein
Men are not potatoes! - Robert A. Heinlein
Butterflies are self propelled flowers. - Robert A. Heinlein
I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting. - Robert A. Heinlein
If God meant for people to fly, He would have given them brains. - Robert A. Heinlein
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things. - Robert A. Heinlein
His older self had taught his younger self a language which the older self knew because the younger self, after being taught, grew up to be the older self and was, therefore, capable of teaching. - Robert A. Heinlein
One man’s magic is another man’s engineering. Supernatural is a null word. - Robert A. Heinlein
Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules about sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lessers. - Robert A. Heinlein
Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. - Robert A. Heinlein
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - 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 — and quickly. - Robert A. Heinlein