Isaac Asimov Quotes
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Books … hold within them the gathered wisdom of humanity, the collected knowledge of the world's thinkers, the amusement and excitement built up by the imaginations of brilliant people. Books contain humor, beauty, wit, emotion, thought, and, indeed, all of life. Life without books is empty.
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Plowboy: You truly feel that all the major changes in history have been caused by science and technology?
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'It is a mistake,' he said, 'to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort. We know that well enough from our experience in the environmental crisis of the twentieth century.'
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He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.
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Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
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Science fiction offers its writers chances of embarrassment that no other form of fiction does.
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'You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason-if you pick the proper postulates. We have ours and Cutie has his.'
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Can the word ‘best’ mean anything at all, except to some particular person in some particular mood? Perhaps not - so if we allow the word to stand as an absolute, you, or you, or perhaps you, may be appalled at omissions or inclusions or, never having read me before, may even be impelled to cry out, ‘Good heavens, are those his best?’
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I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.
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At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.
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All mankind, right down to those you most despise, are your neighbors.
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It is not only the living who are killed in war.
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'Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me,' he said, 'then I would say this lady can not exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.'
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'Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence?' Pelorat said, 'If you list it like that-' 'List it any way you please,' said Trevize. 'I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.'
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Tritt listened placidly, clearly understanding nothing, but content to be listening; while Odeen, transmitting nothing, was as clearly content to be lecturing.
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From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.
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Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!
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I consider one of the most important duties of any scientist the teaching of science to students and to the general public.
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To the rest of the Galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Earth is but a pebble in the sky. To us it is home, and all the home we know.
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It’s a poor atom blaster that won’t point both ways.
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I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
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When an old person dies who has been a part of your life, it is part of your youth that dies.
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The fact that the general incidence of leukemia has doubled in the last two decades may be due, partly, to the increasing use of x-rays for numerous purposes. The incidence of leukemia in doctors, who are likely to be so exposed, is twice that of the general public. In radiologists … the incidence is ten times greater.
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A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.