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....

Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector…and miss.

There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or...

He became convinced that ordinary commercial financing could be done for a service charge plus an insurance fee amounting to much less that the current rates of interest charged by banks, whose rates were based...

common sense” told them was impossible.

Well, didn’t you?

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman’s breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.

In Wilson’s scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality.

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you’re using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.

People simplify ‘Apollonian’ into ‘mild’, and ‘calm’, and ‘cool’. But ‘Apollonian’ and ‘Dionysian’ are two sides of one coin–a nun kneeling in her cell, holding perfectly still, can be in ecstacy more frenzied than any...

Don’t explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends. This may not be true, but it sounds good—and is no sillier than any other theology.

A hero must hero.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those...

Daughters can spend ten percent more than a man can make in any usual occupation. That’s a law of nature, to be known henceforth as ‘Harshaw’s Law.

Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. ~Jubal Harshaw

He’s an honest politician–he stays bought.

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...

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone...

Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run.

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to...

Love” is a that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own…Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or...

The only religious opinion I feel sure of is this: self-awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.

Thinking doesn’t pay. Just makes you discontented with what you see around you.

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — ie., none to speak of

Heinlein’s Rules for Writers Rule One: You Must WriteRule Two: Finish What Your StartRule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial OrderRule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the MarketRule Five: You...

If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.

Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

The Universe was a damned silly place at best . . . but the least likely explanation for its existence was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that some abstract somethings “just happened” to...

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...

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

Secrecy begets tyranny.

Nothing could go wrong because nothing had…I meant “nothing would.” No – Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add...

Never try to outstubborn a cat.

…I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write……writing is antisocial. It’s as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is...

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

The country and culture commonly known as “America” had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian;...

Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.

I’m always suspicious of disinterested interest.

All those religions–they contradict each other on every point but every one of them is filled with ways to help people to be brave enough to laugh even though they know they are dying.

My old man says when it’s time to be counted, the important thing is to be man enough to stand up.

A desire not to butt into other people’s business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.

He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger’s tail was dangerous,...

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.