Isaac Asimov Quotes
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There’s nothing like deduction. We’ve determined everything about our problem but the solution.
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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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I have always dealt with economic forces, rather than philosophic forces, but you can't split history into neat little non-overlapping divisions. For instance, religions tend to accumulate wealth when successful and that eventually tends to distort the economic development of a society.
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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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I recognize the necessity of animal experiments with my mind but not with my heart.
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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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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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The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity - a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.
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If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love - so what difference would it make?
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At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.
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'You’re the U. S. Robot’s psychologist, aren’t you?' 'Robopsychologist, please.' 'Oh, are robots so different from men, mentally?' 'Worlds different.' She allowed herself a frosty smile, 'Robots are essentially decent.'
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I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.
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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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Weisinger, a couple of years ago, made up the following story: 'Isaac Asimov was asked how Superman could fly faster than the speed of light, which was supposed to be an absolute limit. To this Asimov replied, 'That the speed of light is a limit is a theory; that Superman can travel faster than light is a fact.''
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He is energetic only in evading responsibility.
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Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.
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A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
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If you're going to write a story, avoid contemporary references. They date a story and they have no staying power.
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The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested.
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It was easy to cover up ignorance by the mystical word 'intuition.'
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The foundation of all technology is fire.
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Writing is an addiction more powerful than alcohol, than nicotine, than crack. I could not conceive of not writing.
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Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well.
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I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.