Top 500 Robert A. Heinlein Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

402. “All normal human beings have soi-disant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts: those who know this and those who do not.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

403. “Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

404. “I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It’s a common failing.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

405. “Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

406. “One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

407. “If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

408. “Ability is a wonderful thing, but its value is greatly enhanced by dependability. Ability implies repeatability and accountability.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

409. “It was better to live with disappointment and frustration than to live without hope.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

410. “The basic of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

411. “Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

412. “Nobody has ever seen an electron. Nor a thought. You can’t see a thought, you can’t measure, weigh, nor taste it- but thoughts are the most real things in the Galaxy.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

413. “Most women are damn fools and children. But they’ve got more range than we’ve got. The brave ones are braver, the good ones are better – and the vile ones are viler, for that matter.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

414. “Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

415. “A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

416. “Remember though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp -provided it’s loaded.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

417. “The more you love, the more you can love – and the more intensely you love.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

418. “Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe – in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

419. “The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

421. “Money is a powerful aphrodisiac but flowers work almost as well.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

422. “I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

423. “He’s as weird as snake’s suspenders but sweet as a stolen kiss, too.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

424. “No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

425. “A girl’s name ending in ‘a’ – that always suggests a ‘C’ cup.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

426. “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

427. “I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it’s not his choice.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

428. “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

429. “Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

430. “Men are not potatoes!”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

432. “Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

434. “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

435. “Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

436. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. – Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

438. “Do this. Don’t do that. Stay back in line. Where’s tax receipt? Fill out form. Let’s see license. Submit six copies. Exit only. No left turn. No right turn. Queue up and pay fine. Take back and get stamped. Drop dead – but first get permit.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

439. “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

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

441. “A paradox may be paradoctored.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

443. “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

444. “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

445. “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

446. “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

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

448. “Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

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

— Robert A. Heinlein

450. “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