Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.

Emotions are the curse of logic.

Emotions may win arguments, but they don't win wars.

I've had some pretty good arguments with people, but I've never regretted it. I've had people come up where it's all emotion and no fact. That's always sad.

That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.

I'm reluctantly interested in love and helplessly interested in logic and yet they're so conflicting. And they're both necessary for a happy balance, a happy existence... I think.

I was born to argue... I don't know why. I mean, from arguing with my teachers and, on occasions, my parents. I think I've mastered the art of argument at a fairly young age.

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.

If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.

If you and I believe two different things, I can attack you verbally all day, but if I can make you laugh and show you the absurdity of your argument, it will lower you guard. People let you in then.

By the rules of debate, if you lose your cool, you've lost the game.

But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.

Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds

Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.

Logic never attracts men to the point of carrying them away.

That's pretty much what every scene is about, getting people to see your point of view. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery book.

There is nothing that a New-Englander so nearly worships as an argument.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

Logic is the art of convincing us some truth.