Robert A. Heinlein Quotes About Politics

Quotes about: Politics

• Love your country, but never trust its government.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Country, Love You, Government

• [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

• Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Men, Thinking, Creating

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.228, Penguin

• It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds 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.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Law, Political, Mind

• Democracy can survive anything except Democrats

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Democracy, Politics, Democrat

• The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Loyalty, Fall, Two

  Time Enough for Love "Intermission" (1973)

• Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Political, Politics, Strategy

• I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces - with the other matters handled otherwise. I'm sick of the way government sticks its nose in everything, now.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Government, Sick, Police

  "The Robert Heinlein Interview, and other Heinleiniana". Book by J. Neil Schulman, 1990.

• When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Atheist, Government, Church

  Robert A. Heinlein (2007). “Glory Road”, p.318, Macmillan

• Violence never settles anything should be debated by the ghosts of Hitler and Stalin, with the city fathers of Carthage as referees.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Father, Cities, Never Settle

• Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Liberty, Debt, Benefits

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.235, Penguin

• Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government, it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things, but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the “backseat driver” syndrome.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Running, Responsibility, Government

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.230, Penguin

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