HEINLEIN, ROBERT
American author
(1907-1988)
All of the following are taken from the sayings of Lazarus Long, a fictional character created by Heinlein.
Sources: Time Enough for Love (1973) and/or The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (1978)
• “Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.”
• “The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.”
• “Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”
• “Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.”
• “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”
• “God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent ---it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.”
• “’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.”
• “History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.”
• “History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — i.e., none to speak of.”• “If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.”
• “It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed 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.”
• “Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.”
• “The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is the Lord God of Creation. Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.”
• “Natural laws have no pity.”
• “Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.”
• “Of all the strange ‘crimes’ that human beings have legislated out of nothing, ‘blasphemy’ is the most amazing ---with ‘obscenity’ and ‘indecent exposure’ fighting it out for second and third place.”
• “One man’s magic is another man’s engineering. ‘Supernatural’ is a null word.”
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