Robert A. Heinlein · 528 pages
Rating: (240K votes)
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Consider the black widow spider. It's a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent-leather finish and its red hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Thinking doesn't pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist--a master--and that is what Auguste Rodin was--can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“I never do anything I don't want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth--then shut up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“There is no safety this side of the grave”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“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, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“He's an honest politician--he stays bought.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“I’ve been kissed by men who did a very good job. But they don’t give kissing their whole attention. They can’t. No matter how hard they try parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus—or their chances of making the gal—or their own techniques in kissing—or maybe worry about jobs, or money, or will husband or papa or the neighbors catch on. Mike doesn’t have technique . . . but when Mike kisses you he isn’t doing anything else. You’re his whole universe . . . and the moment is eternal because he doesn’t have any plans and isn’t going anywhere. Just kissing you.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“I'm always suspicious of disinterested interest.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Thou art god, I am god. All that groks is god.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“English is the largest of human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language -- this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and most flexible -- despite its barbaric accretions . . . or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Being sorry won't get you into heaven. Get happy, son. Get that old spring into your step and stay on your toes.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein
Born place: in Butler, MO, The United States
Born date July 7, 1907
See more on GoodReads
“Alric looked at Reuben. “Is he telling the truth? I can have him ripped apart by dogs, you know. I love dogs. We use them to hunt, but they aren’t allowed to actually take down or eat their quarry. Always thought that was a shame, you know? I think they would appreciate the opportunity. It could be fun too. We could just let these fools run and bet on how far they can get before the dogs catch them.”
“I bet Horace doesn’t make it to the gate,” Mauvin said; then all heads turned to Reuben.
Ellison looked at him, too, his face frozen in a tense, wide-eyed stare.
“I wasn’t aware of any threat from Squire Ellison, Your Highness,” Reuben replied.
“Are you sure?” Alric pressed, and flicked a small yellow leaf off Ellison’s shoulder. “We don’t have to use the dogs.” He smiled and tilted his head toward the Pickerings. “They’d love to teach them a lesson, you know. In a way they’re a lot like hunting dogs—they never get the chance to kill anyone either. Ever since they reached their tenth birthday, no one has been stupid enough to challenge them.”
“I was, Your Highness,” Reuben said.
That got a laugh from the Pickerings and the prince, although Reuben didn’t know why. “Yes, you did, didn’t you?”
“That’s why you’re our friend,” Mauvin explained.
“He didn’t know who we were,” Fanen pointed out. “He had no idea about the skill of a Pickering blade.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Reuben said. His blood was still up from the fight, and his mouth ran away with him. “If I thought you were there to harm the princess, I would still have fought you.”
A moment of silence followed this and Reuben watched as Alric smiled; then he glanced at Mauvin and they laughed again. “Tell me, Hilfred, how are you at catching frogs?”
― Michael J. Sullivan, quote from The Rose and the Thorn
“It was my job not just to pluck the chickens but to eviscerate them. I hated that part. Nauseating and disgusting, but it had to be done. That's what I learned from my father and what I loved learning from him: that you do what you have to do.”
― Philip Roth, quote from Indignation
“I think the reason they are my relatives now is they are from my country too - it's like the country has become a real family since we are in America, which is not our country”
― NoViolet Bulawayo, quote from We Need New Names
“If you make my children, make any child, feel bad for who they are, I will teach you why people fear mama grizzlies more than papa grizzlies.”
― Patricia Briggs, quote from Dead Heat
“It hit him then, how little he really knew about the lady standing beside him. But . . . he wanted to know more . . . everything about her—not just how she came to know how to dance but what she thought about every second of the day. Who’d taught her how to sew, and how was she able to imagine and assemble a bustle that could collapse and then recover? And . . . did she regret not ever being able to perform on a wire because her aunt had hustled her out of the circus? Unfortunately, the reality was that he wasn’t going to get to learn more about her. Their time was almost over, and that realization caused something that felt remarkably like regret to settle deep in his soul.”
― Jen Turano, quote from After a Fashion
It Was Me All Along
Now You See Me
The Art of Asking; o...
The Hidden Kingdom
Waking Up: A Guide t...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
