Sue Tupper Smock > Sue's Quotes

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
― Robert Heinlein

“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“There is no such thing as "Just a cat.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
― Robert J. Hanlon

“How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“When one teaches, two learn.”
― Robert Heinlein

“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”
― Robert Heinlein

“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”
― Robert Heinlein

“Heinlein's Rules for Writers

Rule One: You Must Write
Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Remember though, your best weapon is between your ears and under your scalp -provided it's loaded.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“Who wills, Can.
Who tries, Does.
Who loves, Lives.”
― Anne McCaffrey

“I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.”
― Anne McCaffrey

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her. ”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Now I can rejoice that I knew you, rather than mourn because I lost you.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Songs of Distant Earth