"Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level."

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.”

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

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

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

Resonant Thoughts

"The crime was subject to punishment by both secular and ecclesiastical courts—just as now it is subject to punishment by both penal and psychiatric sanctions."

— Thomas Szasz

Education1920–2012

#justice

"Now if the Church’s mission is to collaborate with God in his work for the wholeness of the human person, the human community and the cosmos, then this demands that it care for the earth, that it be c…"

— Kurien Kunnumpuram

Religion1931–2018

#justice

"I don’t believe we’re in for a crash now. It's much more likely that government will just conceal the continuation of inflation by price controls. But if anything is worse than an open inflation, it’s…"

— Friedrich Hayek

Philosophy1899–1992

#justice

"We always have the opportunity to choose our better history. We can always understand that most important decision -- the decision we make when we find our common humanity in one another. That’s alway…"

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#justice