Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

“Treat people magnanimously if you can,” he said, “It’ll make you feel better. Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed. Do the decent thing if you can, but for its own sake.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“My brother, Major General Lawrence Heinlein, once told me that there are only two promotions in life that mean a damn: from buck private to corporal, and from colonel to general officer. I made corporal decades ago … but now at long last I know what he meant about the other. Thank you.17”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“a logical man must behave in a crisis as if his calculated risk were indeed a certainty …”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“I suggest that it never helps anyone to tell a mother that her baby is ugly.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“One is the notion that knowledge is worth acquiring, all knowledge, and that a solid grounding in mathematics provides one with the essential language of many of the most important forms of knowledge. The third theme is that, while it is desirable to live peaceably, there are things worth fighting for and values worth dying for—and that it is far better for a man to die than to live under circumstances that call for such sacrifice. The fourth theme is that individual human freedoms are of basic value, without which mankind is less than human.63”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“A smart man learns from experience; a wise man learns from the experience of others.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“If a person names as his three favorites of my books Stranger, Harsh Mistress, and Starship Troopers … then I believe that he has grokked what I meant. But if he likes one—but not the other two—I am certain that he has misunderstood me, he has picked out points—and misunderstood what he picked. If he picks 2 of 3, then there is hope, 1 of 3—no hope. All three books are on one subject: Freedom and Self-Responsibility.28 And”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“She is what I feel to be a good person in the word’s simplest and plainest meaning. Which includes lashing out with her claws on some occasions when others may consider it improper—I don’t give a damn whether Ginny is “proper” or not; I like her. I like her values.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“are incurably conceited and pathologically unsure of themselves; they respond to stroking the way a cat does.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“the right to be naked and not to be ruled by Mrs. Grundy deserves financial support from anyone who believes in freedom.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“My religious beliefs are private to me,” he began, … and I suppose that yours may be to you. I am going to talk about more homely matters, matters so simple and obvious that it has almost gone out of fashion to talk about them—trite things, as trite as approving of good roads and good weather, or declaring for the American home and the American flag. I believe in my neighbors.32”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“Family is, after all—however irritating—family.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“It appears that there is now a drive on to make the world safe for morons[,]”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988

“In the end, it comes down, as it always comes down, to each individual human being doing what he—or she—must to live with himself/herself.”
― William H. Patterson Jr., Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: The Man Who Learned Better, 1948–1988