5 Robert A. Heinlein Quotes on Humanity

Robert A. Heinlein quotes on humanity

12. The death rate is the same for us as for anybody...one person, one death, sooner or later.

13. There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people. Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.

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

137. There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who 'love Nature' while deploring the 'artificialities' with which 'Man has spoiled 'Nature.'' The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of 'Nature' - but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own self-hatred. In the case of 'Naturists' such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women - it strikes me as a fine arrangement - and perfectly 'natural' Believe it or not, there were 'Naturists' who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being 'unnaturaI' and a 'despoiling of Nature.'

161. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'