QUOTATIONS from Robert Heinlein seem to very popular these days. Here are some of my favorites:

Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it!

Most “scientists” are bottle washers and button sorters.

A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future.

In a mature society, “civil servant” is semantically equal to “civil master.”

There are hidden contradictions within 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 damn (erected by beavers for beaver’s purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purpose 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 “unnatural” and a “despoiling of nature.”

Beware of altrusim. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!

Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

From "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" in Robert Heinlein's 1973 novel Time Enough for Love.