Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion."


"If you don't like yourself, you can't like other people."


"Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well."


"An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications."


"A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld."


"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man."


"Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men."


"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."



"Love is something that still goes on when you are not sexually excited. There can be sex without love, and love without sex.  Love can be defined, however, the trouble with defining in words anything as basic as love is that the definition can't be understood by anyone who has not experienced it."


"[…] Marriage is much more than an economic contract to provide for children and to take care of mothers while they bear kids and bring them up. Homo sapiens have evolved quite unconsciously to performing this indispensable function and be happy while doing so. All forms of marriage have endless customs, rules and arrangements. It is a 'marriage' if the arrangement provides for children and/or compensates the adults. For human beings, the only acceptable compensation for the drawbacks of marriage lies in what men and women can give each other. Sex is not marriage, nor is it reason enough to stay married. Why buy a cow when milk is cheap? Companionship, partnership, mutual reassurance, someone to laugh with and grieve with, loyalty that accepts foibles, someone to touch, someone to hold your hand - these things are 'marriage' and sex is but the icing on the cake. Oh, that icing can be wonderfully tasty - but it is not the cake. A marriage can lose that tasty 'icing'  - say, through accident - and still go on and on and on, giving deep happiness to those who share it."

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love