Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Must be yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please.

Rules equal boredom, and I don't like that.

You can't always let people do their own thing.

Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type.

In being strict, you were able to control.

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.

I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.

The first instinct of the modern man is to get a law passed to forbid or prevent what, in his wisdom, he disapproves.

Conformity--the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority.

Most people resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers

There were a lot of stop signs in my life... People telling you what to do, when to do it, and so on.

I don't like rules.

A rule is a rule.

I don't like rules, because rules, you have to follow.

Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we...yes, I assure you...we should be begging to be under control again at once.

We want to believe we are good, we are different, we are better, or we are superior. But this body of social-psychological research--and there are obviously many more experiments in addition to mine and Milgram's--shows that the majority of good, ordinary, normal people can be easily seduced, tempted, or initiated into behaving in ways that they say they never would. In 30 minutes we got them stepping across that line.

The People adore authority.

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.

Freedom is only granted us that obedience may be more perfect.

Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. –The Grand Inquisitor

It's a metaphor for what we're being told: "Just stay in the box, kid, don't muddy the water." Parents say it to their kids. Teachers say it. Schools do. And so people become immune to the sameness.

People do what they are told not to do. It happens time and time again. Here on the frozen tundra, it is known as the Tongue on the Frozen Pump Handle principle.

People are submissive to power, and few of them can be influenced by doctrines of righteousness.

Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.