Good Quotes by Heinlein

This section can be controversial. All opinions and arguments are welcome. Personal attacks are not acceptable.
Post Reply
User avatar
Firewa11
Posts: 13026
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:22 am
Achievement count: 49
Location: The Tempest

Good Quotes by Heinlein

Post by Firewa11 » Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:17 am

Some good quotes by Robert Heinlein. He's one of my favorite authors. Yes I put it under Politics & Religion because some of his quotes may be viewed as controversial.
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
Robert A. Heinlein wrote:"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
"Life may begin at 30, but it doesn't get real interesting until about 150."
ImageImageImage

User avatar
U-Turn
Posts: 3776
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:37 pm
Achievement count: 31
Location: Florida, sunning the days away.
Contact:

Re: Good Quotes by Heinlein

Post by U-Turn » Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:13 am

I Agree.
Most of those I think, are 100% right-on man. A couple are relative, which all probably are, but could be intrepreted thru specific points of view.
-
Is this from a book of quotes ?
Sitting on the couch, watching TV, isn't living.
Triumph 955

txt 8..223.0762 to ride.
-

Jenson
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:57 pm
Location: downtown FTW

Re: Good Quotes by Heinlein

Post by Jenson » Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:58 am

Excellent quotes. I need to check out more of his stuff. I think the quote about the failure of democracies is especially spot-on, and reflects what we are on the cusp of in this current generation.
"Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That's why God created fast motorcycles, bubba." --Hunter S. Thompson
'02 F4i- Behold the awesome power of zip-ties.

User avatar
U-Turn
Posts: 3776
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:37 pm
Achievement count: 31
Location: Florida, sunning the days away.
Contact:

Re: Good Quotes by Heinlein

Post by U-Turn » Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:34 am

No, that started when Nixon took us to the Deficit Spending Model.
Sitting on the couch, watching TV, isn't living.
Triumph 955

txt 8..223.0762 to ride.
-

User avatar
shilka99
Honorary Club Member
Honorary Club Member
Posts: 1769
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:19 am
Riding Style: Track Instructor
Achievement count: 42
Location: Irving

Re: Good Quotes by Heinlein

Post by shilka99 » Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:09 am

Thanks Firewall. Some of my all-time favourites in there, plus some new all-time faves.
Shaun in McKinney
RGV250|520SX/SMR|RSV4 Factory