The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the belief in collective wisdom over individual wisdom.
Robert A. Heinlein's quote emphasizes the foundational premise of democracy that collective decision-making, derived from the perspectives and experiences of many individuals, is inherently wiser than that of a single person. It suggests a skepticism about the assumption that a large group of people, because of their diverse viewpoints and knowledge, can arrive at better decisions than an individual, questioning both the validity and the practical implementation of democratic principles.
Themes
DemocracyWisdomCollectiveDecisionsIndividual
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on governance, one might use this quote to support the value of public input.
More from Robert A. Heinlein
All quotes βAn armed society is a polite society.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Similar quotes
Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges. They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines. Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful, always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.
Ivo AndricRead
My hapless peers with their lofty dreams--how I envy and despise them! I'm with the others, the even more hapless, who have no-one but themselves to whom they can tell their dreams and show what would be verses if they wrote them. I'm with those poor slobs who have no books to show, who have no literature beside their own soul, and who are suffocating to death due to the fact that they exist without having taken that mysterious, transcendental exam that makes one eligible to live.
Fernando PessoaRead
History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
Edmund BurkeRead
Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it's true.
Bill GatesRead
Who can live with this Consciousness and not wake frightened at sunrise?
Allen GinsbergRead
The laws of Nature take precedence of all human laws. The purpose of all human laws is one - to defeat the laws of Nature. This is the case among all the nations, both civilized and savage. It is a grotesquerie, but when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity.
Mark TwainRead