Quotes from Space Cadet

Robert A. Heinlein ·  224 pages

Rating: (7.1K votes)


“The sort of guardian you can hire is worth about as much as the sort of wife you can buy.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth—you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“If I’ve reached the place where I’m a good influence on anybody, it’s time I cultivated some new vices.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“She might get high enough to crash—no higher.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“This school is based on the idea that a man who can think correctly will automatically behave morally—or”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet



“A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking. Commodore Arkwright realized that these tendencies are inherent and inescapable; he hoped to offset them a bit by setting up a course that could not be passed without original thinking.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“Strictly speaking, the Patrol is not a military organization at all.” “Sir?” “I know, I know—you are trained to use weapons, you are under orders, you wear a uniform. But your purpose is not to fight, but to prevent fighting, by every possible means. The Patrol is not a fighting organization; it is the repository of weapons too dangerous to entrust to military men.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“Men on the surface of a planet are as helpless against men in spaceships as a man would be trying to conduct a rock-throwing fight from the bottom of a well. The man at the top of the well has gravity working for him.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


“They flew her,” Matt pointed out. “Sure they did—and my hat’s off to them. But it takes heroes to fly a box as primitive as this and I’m not the hero type.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Space Cadet


About the author

Robert A. Heinlein
Born place: in Butler, MO, The United States
Born date July 7, 1907
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Popular quotes

“But no one leaves. - Let us set out once more on our native roads, burdened with my vice, that vice that since the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side - that towers to heaven, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on.

Ultimate innocence, final timidity. All's said. Carry no more my loathing and treacheries before the world.

Come on! Marching, burdens, the desert, boredom and anger.

Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? - Through what blood wade?

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- Ah! I am so forsaken I will offer at any shrine impulses toward perfection.

Oh my self-denial, my marvelous Charity! my Selfless love! And still here below!

De Profundis Domine, what an ass I am!”
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