Robert A. Heinlein Quotes - Page 17

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• 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.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Loyalty, Responsibility, Men

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.143, Penguin

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• 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

  Teaching, Self, Taught

  Robert A. Heinlein (2010). “The Green Hills of Earth and The Menace from Earth”, p.284, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Self, Work Out

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.26, Penguin

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• Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key -- and we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Jobs, Dad, Math

  Robert A. Heinlein (2005). “Have Space Suit, Will Travel”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

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• There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships or missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time. We've never been told to go down and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  War, Down And, Way

  "Starship Troopers". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1959.

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• Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Self, Years, People

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.331, Penguin

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• Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Psychosis, Neurosis, Sin

  Robert A. Heinlein (2014). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.106, Hachette UK

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• Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gratitude, Resentment, Euphemism

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.105, Penguin

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• Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Wise, Men, Law

  Robert A. Heinlein (1985). “Job, a Comedy of Justice”, Del Rey

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• I was not offended, my love. An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted. And pride is too heavy baggage for my journey.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Pride, Journey, Baggage

  Robert A. Heinlein (2007). “Glory Road”, p.136, Macmillan

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• Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part...and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Attitude, Sacrifice, Emotional

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.127, Penguin

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• A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being 'frank'.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Clever, Pride, One Liner

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.327, Penguin

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• Never insult anyone by accident.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Comeback, Insult, Accidents

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• 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.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Teaching, Math, Important

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• The Stone trembled and threw herself outward bound, toward Saturn. In her train followed hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of thousands of restless, rolling Stones . . . to Saturn . . . to Uranus, to Pluto . . . rolling on out to the stars . . . outward bound to the ends of the Universe.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Rolling, Stones

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• Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Space, Orbit, Earth

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• Heroism' often consists in keeping your head in an emergency and doing the best you can with what you have instead of panicking and being shot in the tail. People who fight this way win more battles than do intentional heroes; a glory hound often throws away the lives of his mates as well as his own.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Hero, Fighting, Winning

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.78, Penguin

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• I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Cat, Men, Eight

  Robert A. Heinlein (1959). “The Door Into Summer”, Roc

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• Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy- live or die- is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it- 'Thou art God!'

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Art, Father, Home

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• People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  People, Missing, Slugs

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.231, Penguin

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• My old man taught me two things: 'Mind own business' and 'Always cut cards.'

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Life, Cutting, Men

  Robert A Heinlein (1966). “Moon Is Harsh Mistres”, Berkley

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• The commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Selfish, Race, Weakness

  Robert A. Heinlein (2012). “The Star Beast”, p.190, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• Unarmed hand-to-hand fighting does not change through the ages; only the name changes, and it has only one rule: do it first, do it fast, do it dirtiest.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Art, Fighting, Hands

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.475, Penguin

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• That old saw about the early bird just proves that the worm should have stayed in bed.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Morning, Should Have, Bird

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• If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Ignorance, Light, Intellectual

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