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The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
Robert A. Heinlein
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Robert A. Heinlein
Age: 80 †
Born: 1907
Born: July 7
Died: 1988
Died: May 8
Essayist
Literary Critic
Naval Officer
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Science Writer
Screenwriter
Stonemason
Writer
Butler
Missouri
Robert Anson Heinlein
Anson MacDonald
Lyle Monroe
John Riverside
Caleb Saunders
Simon York
Greatest
Liberty
Force
Human
Libertarianism
Humans
Selfishness
Libertarian
Productive
Economics
More quotes by Robert A. Heinlein
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
From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.
Robert A. Heinlein
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
Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor.
Robert A. Heinlein
Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
Robert A. Heinlein
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other sins are invented nonsense.
Robert A. Heinlein
He's an honest politician--he stays bought.
Robert A. Heinlein
Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it - especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.
Robert A. Heinlein
Decency is not news it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime.
Robert A. Heinlein
Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain.
Robert A. Heinlein
If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.
Robert A. Heinlein
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'.
Robert A. Heinlein
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert A. Heinlein
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
Learning . . . is - also an end in itself.
Robert A. Heinlein
Patriotism is not sentimental nonsense. Nor something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual.
Robert A. Heinlein
The future is better than the past. Despite the crepe hangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands ... with tools ... with horse sense and science and engineering.
Robert A. Heinlein
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
Robert A. Heinlein
Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.
Robert A. Heinlein
The bugs are not like us. The Pseudo-Arachnids aren’t even like spiders. They are arthropods who happen to look like a madman’s conception of a giant intelligent spider, but their organization, psychological and economic, is more like that of ants or termites they are communal entities, the ultimate dictatorship of the hive.
Robert A. Heinlein
