What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell,' avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history' - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Heinlein urges focusing on objective facts for navigating the future, dismissing opinion, history, and supernatural claims.
- In plain terms
- Focus on facts to face the unknown.
- What can you take from it?
- Use facts to navigate the future.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What facts do you trust?
- What should you ignore?
Another view
Facts alone may not address values or ethics.
More from Robert A. Heinlein
What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!
Permalink to quote #144 When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it mad…
Permalink to quote #146 Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human…
Permalink to quote #143
Related quotes
:Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another:
Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes quote #9 Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions.
Buckminster FullerBuckminster Fuller quote #40 Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences - and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on - whether we…
Linus PaulingLinus Pauling quote #1