"Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards."

Robert A. Heinlein Literature See all quotes by Robert A. Heinlein →

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More by Robert A. Heinlein

“Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth—you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers.”

“Clark just looked bored and contemptuous and said nothing, because Clark would not bother to interfere with Armageddon unless there was ten percent in it for him.”

“Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.”

“I used to wonder what it was like to be rich. Now I am and it turns out to be mostly headaches.”

“He seeks order, not truth. Suppose truth defies order, will he accept it? Will you? I think not.”

“Is it not better to be in ignorance than to believe falsely?”

Resonant Thoughts

"Firstly I had never touched anyone's feet. So I refused to do that for months. I had never been inside a temple. I refused to go for puja every evening. I said I have only come to learn dance. I don't…"

— Protima Bedi

1948–1998

#knowledge

"Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year. He was never in a college or academy as a student, and never inside of a college or academy building till since h…"

— Abraham Lincoln

Politics1744–1786

#education

"I am a Free Trader on moral no less than on economic grounds: for I think human greed and selfishness are interwoven with every thread of the Protective system."

— William Ewart Gladstone

Politics1809–1898

#freedom

"By that time a structure of property rights had developed in the Netherlands and England which provided the incentives necessary for sustained growth. These included the inducements required to encour…"

— Douglass North

Economics1920–2015

#justice