Top 500 Robert A. Heinlein Quotes (2026 Update)
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451. “A critic is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased, he hates all creative people equally.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

452. “Limiting the freedom of news ‘just a little bit’ is in the same category with the classic example ’a little bit pregnant.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

453. “A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

454. “Department of Defense” ever won a war; see the histories. But it seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war – like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

455. “Nevertheless, once you pick up a stray cat and feed it, you cannot abandon it. Self-love forbids it. The cat’s welfare becomes essential to your own peace of mind – even when it’s a bloody nuisance not to break faith with the cat.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

456. “Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

457. “If I choose to dine with publicans and sinners, that is my business. But I do not choose to break bread with Pharisees.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

458. “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

459. “A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

460. “Never trust machinery more complicated than a knife and fork.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

461. “By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man – man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

462. “Little Brother... precious darling... little imp with lively legs and lovely lewd lascivious lecherous licentious libido... beautiful bumps and pert posterior... with soft voice and gentle hands. My baby darling.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

463. “C’mon you apes, you wanna’ live forever?”

— Robert A. Heinlein

464. “Please don’t invent a debt that does not exist, or next you will be trying to feel gratitude – and that is the treacherous first step toward complete moral degradation.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

465. “A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be... more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

466. “I’m always suspicious of disinterested interest.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

467. “The shamans are forever yacking about their snake oil miracles. I prefer the real McCoy, a pregnant woman.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Featured in: Real Quotes

468. “Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws – always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

469. “Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

470. “Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

471. “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

472. “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

473. “They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw’s opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

474. “Small change can often be found under seat cushions.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

475. “Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

476. “Gratitude: An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary behavior, altruism. Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Featured in: Real Quotes

477. “The killer looked up as the bullet hit him. He looked as if he were puzzled by some strange occurence, being too freshly dead to be aware of it.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

478. “Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

479. “Stinky says women should be obscene but not heard.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

480. “Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don’t argue with it especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

481. “If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

482. “A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual” – find out how he feels about astrology.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

483. “All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

484. “If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

— Robert A. Heinlein

485. “The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

486. “Drop dead-but first get permit.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

487. “Patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man’s evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

489. “Hit it! You have to hit it harder than that. Electrons are timid little things but notional; you have to let them know who’s boss.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

490. “There are only five things really worth drawing; four of them are pretty girls and the fifth is cats.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

491. “I’m a professional bad example. You can learn a lot by watching me. Or listening to me. Either one.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

492. “The Colorado River was at a record low and the towers in Lake Mead stood high out of the water. But the Angelenos committed communal suicide by watering lawns as usual.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

493. “Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

494. “I never do anything I don’t want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

495. “I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

496. “Politics is not evil; politics is the human race’s most magnificent achievement.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

497. “Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

498. “Kettering’s Law: “Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

499. “Beauty is not diminished by being shared.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

500. “Remember this: once the human race is established on more than one planet and especially, in more than one solar system, there is no way now imaginable to kill off the human race.”

— Robert A. Heinlein