Robert A. Heinlein

Lazarus Long

Time enough for Love

Every loaf needs yeast. A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill. Sheep. Pyramid builders at best, decadent savages at worst. You may be eliminating your creative one-tenth of one percent. Your yeast.

I don't give advice. People never take it.

Earth-  its rough enough to test a man and eliminate weaklings, gentle enough to let a man raise a family if he has the guts to dig in and sweat.

I have strong opinions but a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out. Galileo proved that and it may be the only certainty we have.

All the so called democracies i've ever seen or heard of were either forced on the majority from above or grew up slowly from the plebs discovering that they could vote themselves bread and circuses for a while until the system broke down.

Majority rule gives the ruthless strong man plenty of elbow room to oppress his fellows.

A fence is in a difficult position...he has to have a permanent address. This can sometimes force him to be honest.

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

As a thumb rule one can say that any time a planet starts developing cities of more than one million people, it is approaching critical mass. In a century or two it won't be fit to live on.

When the time comes, will you kid yourself that it is really your duty to hang on? If a man has the temperment for power...he finds it hard to abdicate.

Do you think Solomon serviced all his thousand wives? If so, what sort of job did he do on the last one? -Poor girl.

There is no privacy in any society crowded enough to need ID's. A law guaranteeing privacy simply insures that bugs, microphones, and lenses and so forth are that much harder to spot.

If you want cooperation out of me of any sort, you'll start by cooperating with me.

One of the few things I've learned is that humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way.

Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conciet. Its only advantage, so far as I have been able to see, is that it spans change.

That's not wisdom, thats a cliche. an obvious truth. Any fool will admit that, even if he doesn't live by it.

If you think I have gazed upon the face of God, think again. I haven't even begun to find out how the Universe works, much less what it is for. To figure out the basic questions about this world it would be necessary to stand outside and look at it. Not inside, no, not in two thousand years, not in twenty thousand. When a man dies, he may shake loose his local perspective and see the thing as a whole.

I don't believe in anything. I know certain things...little things...from experience, but I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.

Neither doctors nor preachers know what they pretend to know.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

When a man makes a sweeping statement he often has mental reservations.

Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke.

Progress doesn't come from early risers, progress is made by lazy men looking for an easier way to do things.

Don't put your faith in princes, since they don't produce but always steal.

I've been broke oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting. A man that doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things, but not bored. His predictament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life...whether he knows it or not. Can trap him of course, thats why food is the usual bait for traps, but that the intrieging part about being broke; how to solve it without being trapped. A hungry man tends to lose his judgement. A man who has missed seven meals is often ready to kill...rarely a solution.

An intelligent man can turn his hand to anything if he takes the time to learn how it works.

I've never tended to lose my head over politics. It doesn't leave much for an encore does it? A tisket, a tasket, a head in a basket...it cannot reply to questions you ask it...Final curtain, no bows...But revolution can be fun.

Supreme happiness lies in wanting to keep another person safe and warm and happy, and being privileged to try.

God split himself into myriad parts that he might have friends...this may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than any other theology.

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old false-hoods.

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

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.

Never frighten a little man. He will kill you.

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.

Secrecy is the beginning of Tyranny.

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

It is impossible for a man to love his wife wholeheartedly without loveing all women somewhat. I suppose the converse must be true of women.

Do not confuse duty with whatever people expect of you. 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.

They
"You can't peddle nonsense to me by claiming to be fresh out of sense."

"I am immortal...second only to the prime datum of my own existance is the emotionally convincing certainty of my own continuity. I may be a closed curve, but closed or open, I neither have a begin-ing or an end. Self-Awareness is not relational, it is absolute and cannot be reached to be destroyed or created. Memory however, being a relational aspect of consiousness, may be tampered with and possibly destroyed.

The surest way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth unconvincingly.

What was a wife?
 Another soul like ones own...
a compliment...
the other nessasary pole to the couple..
a sanctuary of understanding and sympathy in the boundless depths of alone-ness.

Stranger in a Strange Land

No society will allow its basic concepts to challenged with impunity.

Conceptual logic is understanding who you are, why you're here, how you tick- and behaving accordingly. Happiness is functioning the way that a human being is organized to function.

All your stomach can reflect is predjudice trained into you before you aquired reason.

"The Truth is simple...but the way of man is hard.
First you must learn to control your self.
The rest follows.
Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself,
for the world is his.
Peace, Love, and Happiness walk with him wherever he goes."
-the Man from Mars