One man’s “magic” is another man’s engineering. “Supernatural” is a null word.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
An armed society is a polite society.
-Beyond This Horizon
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
I’ve never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith—it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
-Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land
History does not record anywhere a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
-Professor Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
-still searchin’
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you’ll abort it if you do. Be patient and you’ll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
The supreme irony of life is that no one gets out of it alive.
Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love
Learning isn’t a means to an end; it’s an end in and of itself.
-still searchin’
…brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value.
-that also sounds like Lazarus
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.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.)
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love
“Love” is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
-Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land
First, what is it you want us to pay taxes for? Tell me what I get and perhaps I’ll buy it.
-Manuel O’Kelly, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The most preposterous notion that H. 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.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
