Arthur C. Clarke? Tobias Dantzig? Robert Heinlein? Jerome Agel? Harold Faber? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The science fiction luminary Arthur C. Clarke once said something like: the best way to find the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. I have seen several different versions of this remark. Would you …
Tag Archives: Robert Heinlein
Thank Goodness We Don’t Get As Much Government As We Pay For
Will Rogers? Charles F. Kettering? Max Denney? Thomas Jefferson? Robert Heinlein? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Many complain about the burdensome taxes collected by some governments. Many also complain about the counter-productive and wasteful actions taken by those governments. These criticisms have been combined to produce the following comical remark: Thank heavens we don’t get all …
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Everything Which Is Not Compulsory Is Forbidden
T. H. White? Robert Heinlein? W. H. Auden? Murray Gell-Mann? Friedrich Schiller? Weare Holbrook? Ronald Storrs? Harry Lindsay? Gordon Daniel Conant? Gerhart H. Seger? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: The following societal principle has been called totalitarian, authoritarian, fascist, and dictatorial. Here are two versions: Everything which is not forbidden is compulsory. Everything which is not …
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There Are Three Main Plots for the Human Interest Story: Boy-Meets-Girl, The Little Tailor, and The Man-Who-Learned-Better
Robert Heinlein? L. Ron Hubbard? Catherine Crook de Camp? L. Sprague de Camp? Brian W. Aldiss? John Brunner? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous science fiction author Robert Heinlein apparently contended that there were only three basic templates for stories. One template was “The Brave Little Tailor”, a German fairy tale about a clever individual …
It Is Easy To Predict an Automobile in 1880; It Is Very Hard To Predict a Traffic Problem
Frederik Pohl? Robert Heinlein? Isaac Asimov? Connie Willis? Ed Bryant? George Zebrowski? Ben Bova? Robert J. Sawyer? Sam Moskowitz? Dear Quote Investigator: Predicting the primary effects of a new technology is difficult but feasible. Anticipating all the secondary effects is nearly impossible. Here are two statements of a viewpoint that has achieved popularity amongst science …
That’s the Moose’s Problem
Robert Heinlein? Emma D. E. N. Southworth? Wilfrid S. Bronson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Science fiction luminary Robert Heinlein employed the following phrase in two of his novels: That’s the moose’s problem. The phrase seems to mean: That problem should be dealt with by someone else. Would you please explore the origin of this expression? …
Never Attempt To Teach a Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time and Annoys the Pig
Mark Twain? Robert Heinlein? Paul Dickson? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Teaching a pig to sing is a futile task that aggravates the porcine student according to a popular saying. Luminary Mark Twain and science fiction author Robert Heinlein have received credit for this adage. Would you please determine the accurate ascription and the original context? …
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Never Attribute to Malice That Which Is Adequately Explained by Stupidity
Robert Heinlein? Napoleon Bonaparte? Ayn Rand? David Hume? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Robert J. Hanlon? Arthur Cushman McGiffert? William James Laidlay? Ernst Haeckel? Thomas F. Woodlock? Nick Diamos? Dear Quote Investigator: It is easy to impute hostility to the actions of others when a situation is actually unclear. A popular insightful adage attempts to constrain …
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There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch — TANSTAAFL
Milton Friedman? Robert Heinlein? Robert G. Ingersoll? Michael Montague? Walter Morrow? John Madden? Harley L. Lutz? Pierre Dos Utt? Leonard P. Ayres? Jake Falstaff? Herman Fetzer? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Today many goods and services are available for free especially via the internet. However, the true cost is usually not zero. Subsidies, indirect costs, and …
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Obscene and Not Heard
Groucho Marx? Ethel Barrymore? Maurice Barrymore? Paul M. Potter? Gertrude Battles Lane? John Lennon? Joe E. Lewis? Robert Heinlein? Marilyn Manson? Augustus John? Oscar Wilde? Dear Quote Investigator: There is well-known and often repeated admonition directed at young people who are making too much noise: Children should be seen and not heard. Wordplay has produced …