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Gratitude: An imaginary emotion that rewards an imaginary behavior, altruism. Both imaginaries are false faces for selfishness, which is a real and honest emotion.
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
Honest
Altruism
Faces
Imaginary
Real
Selfishness
Rewards
False
Gratitude
Behavior
Emotion
More quotes by Robert A. Heinlein
Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.
Robert A. Heinlein
Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can't conquer a free man the most you can do is kill him.
Robert A. Heinlein
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
Robert A. Heinlein
The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in.
Robert A. Heinlein
Spacemen die if they stay in one place.
Robert A. Heinlein
Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.
Robert A. Heinlein
Never force an idea you'll abort it if you do.
Robert A. Heinlein
Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.
Robert A. Heinlein
Democracy is a poor system of government at best the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Robert A. Heinlein
It seems to me that any law that is not enforced and can't be enforced weakens all other laws.
Robert A. Heinlein
Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none men cannot live together without them.
Robert A. Heinlein
The early worm deserves the bird.
Robert A. Heinlein
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein
- I'm so busy doing what I must do that I don't have time for what I ought to do... and I never get a chance to do what I want to do! - Son, that's universal. The way to keep that recipe from killing you is occasionally to do what you want to do anyhow.
Robert A. Heinlein
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Robert A. Heinlein
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac but flowers work almost as well.
Robert A. Heinlein
My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.
Robert A. Heinlein
A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.
Robert A. Heinlein
Democracy can survive anything except Democrats
Robert A. Heinlein
The hardest part of gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche.
Robert A. Heinlein
