"Is there intelligent life in Washington, D.C.?"

"The last thing to come fluttering out of Pandora's Box was Hope - without which men die."

"A man who can read and write is nine-tenths free even in chains."

"...the draft is involuntary servitude, immoral, and unconstitutional no matter what the Supreme Court says."

"If we were to be conquered and occupied, the Communist world might collapse rather quickly. We have been propping them up whenever they were in real trouble (frequently!) for about half a century."

"...I have great confidence in Man, based on his past record. He is mean, ornery, cantankerous, illogical, emotional - and amazingly hard to kill...I have a deep and abiding confidence in Man as he is, imperfect and often unlovable - plus still greater confidence in his potential. No matter how tough things are, Man copes."

"Concerning our public schools today: Never have so many been paid so much for so little. I thank whatever gods there be that I went to school so many years ago that I had no choice but to be tightly disciplined in classes in which the teachers did not hesitate to fail or punish."

"I have one of my characters say that the right to bear arms is the basis of all human freedom. I strongly believe that...Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such [registration] laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to resist..."

"...Criminals are never materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless. Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat."

"And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown...I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth."

All of the above quotations belong to Robert Heinlein.