Robert A. Heinlein Quotes About Opinions

Quotes about: Opinions

• [T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Athlete, Thinking, Media

• What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Truth, Thinking

  Time Enough for Love (p. 264)

• Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Thinking, Issues, Never Settle

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.27, Penguin

• There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Two, Mind, Important

• The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Freedom, Democracy, Opinion

• Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Mother, Children, Opinion

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.222, Penguin

• The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Congratulations, Self, Hymns

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.227, Penguin

• On two subjects the overwhelming majority of people regarded their own opinions as Absolute Truth, and sincerely believed that anyone who disagreed with them was immoral, outrageous, sinful, sacrilegious, offensive, intolerable, stupid, illogical, treasonable, actionable, against the public interest, ridiculous, and obscene. The two subjects were (of course) sex and religion.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sex, Stupid, Two

  Robert A. Heinlein (1988). “To Sail Beyond the Sunset”

• If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another - but which one? Differences are crucial.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Running, Horse, Differences

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.222, Penguin

• I remembered a time when my grandmother had asked me to explain television to her - the guts, not the funny pictures. There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat. This be treason in an age when ignorance has come into its own and one man's opinion is as good as another's. But there it is. As Star says, the world is what it is - and doesn't forgive ignorance.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Ignorance, Grandmother

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