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Quotes from The Past Through Tomorrow — Robert A. Heinlein

1907–1988 United States

← All quotes by Robert A. Heinlein

16 quotes

There is nothing in this world so permanent as a temporary emergency.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

High I.Q., good compatibility index, superior education—everything that makes a person pleasant and easy and interesting to have around.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

History is never surprising—after it happens.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

From my point of view, a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

I think perhaps of all the things a police state can do to its citizens, distorting history is possibly the most pernicious.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Don’t pay any attention to what she says. Half of it’s always wrong and she doesn’t mean the rest.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that ‘truth will prevail’ is merely a pious wish; history doesn’t show it.”

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

I was too busy to oblige them by dying just now.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

He decided to stay in his space suit; explosive decompression didn’t appeal to him. Come to think about it, death from old age was his choice.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It’s just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are ‘inspired.’ Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.”

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“Yes, maybe it’s just one colossal big joke with no point to it.” Lazarus stood up and stretched and scratched his ribs. “But I can tell you this, Andy, whatever the answers are, here’s one monkey that’s going to keep on climbing, and looking around him to see what he can see, as long as the tree holds out.”

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“Do you seriously expect to start a rebellion with picayune stuff like that?”
“It’s not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions, below the logical level. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn’t have to be a prejudice about an important matter either.

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“What course of action do you favor?”
“Me? Why, none. Mary, if there is any one thing I have learned in the past couple of centuries, it’s this: These things pass. Wars and depressions and Prophets and Covenants—they pass. The trick is to stay alive through them.”

The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert A. Heinlein (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.