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.

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.

There is magic in words, black magic--if you know how to invoke it.

I believe very strongly in freedom of religion--but I think that that freedom is best expressed as freedom to keep quiet. [Editor's note: Sounds to me like Heinlein was uncomfortable with folks who had convictions differing from his own Libertarian views, of which he hardly kept quiet about...]

"Examined semantically 'justice' has no referent--there is no observable phenomenon in the space-time-matter continuum to which one can point, and say, 'This is justice.' Science can deal only with that which can be observed and measured. Justice is not such a matter; therefore it can never have the same meaning to one as to another; any 'noises' said about it will only add to confusion.

But damage, physical or economic, can be pointed to and measured... Any act not leading to damage, physical or economic, to some particular person, they declared to be lawful."