Robert A. Heinlein on Power
Browse 6 quotations attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, catalogued under power, with dates where available.
This page displays 6 quotations attributed to Robert A. Heinlein and filed under "power" in QuoteLineage. The selection is ordered by stored importance and quality scores, not citation counts. A topic label describes how an entry is catalogued; it does not establish the theme's importance in the author's work.
Attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, entry #125263: "Cold calculated awareness that their power lay in keeping the people in ignorance."
Attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, entry #107424: "Son, people do odd things for money, but they’ll do still more drastic things for power over money. Anybody sittin’ close to a billion credits is in danger; it’s like keeping a pe…"
6 Quotes by Robert A. Heinlein on Power
"Cold calculated awareness that their power lay in keeping the people in ignorance."
"Son, people do odd things for money, but they’ll do still more drastic things for power over money. Anybody sittin’ close to a billion credits is in danger; it’s like keeping a pet rattlesnake."
"Wherever there is power and mass to manipulate, Man can live."
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
"His bow to me must have been calculated on a slide rule; it suggested that I was about to be Supreme Minister but was not quite there yet, that I was his senior but nevertheless a civilian — then subtract five degrees for the fact that he wore the Emperor’s aiguillette on his right shoulder."
"I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."