Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the sophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination-- devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues -- which a man… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
My folks tried to make a preacher of me and missed by a narrow margin… I would have made a good one if I… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
Ninety percent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business. — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
If we blow ourselves up we will do it by misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer,… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago. — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
Most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority. — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
“Some people are ants by nature; they have to work, even when it’s useless. Few people have a talent for constructive laziness.” — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
“The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
“I tried to dig out of the computer a call directory for Luna. But it was still sulking. I could not get it to… — Robert A. Heinlein Copy Share Image
