The intelligent fights only when he must and never for sport. Robert A. Heinlein More Quotes by Robert A. Heinlein More Quotes From Robert A. Heinlein Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system. Robert A. Heinlein orbit space earth You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. Robert A. Heinlein malice results stupid People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living. Robert A. Heinlein diaries writing people 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 people years It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence. Robert A. Heinlein obscurity artist use The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. Robert A. Heinlein niche hardest ideas 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 eight cat men In Wilson's scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality. Robert A. Heinlein evaluation chance breakfast Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Robert A. Heinlein moral-behavior meat wind I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food. Robert A. Heinlein things-in-life sex people Nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America--and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it. Robert A. Heinlein earth sex america A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws. Robert A. Heinlein prudes law thinking I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not Robert A. Heinlein cat bed men 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 obituary chance firsts Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time. Robert A. Heinlein emotional self art Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language. Robert A. Heinlein irrational language said One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen. Robert A. Heinlein done authority writing No storyteller has been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe. Robert A. Heinlein mad dream science Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime - and thereby gives time to enjoy butterflies and kittens and rainbows. Robert A. Heinlein rainbow butterfly giving I'll give you an exact definition. When the happiness of another person becomes as essential to yourself as your own, then the state of love exists. Robert A. Heinlein essentials love giving
