Isaac Asimov Famous Quotes
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."
I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them.
"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."
"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
"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."
I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander.
"No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . ."
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
"Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments."
"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."
"Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war."
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
"Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match."
"University President Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers...and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for erasers."
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka' (I found it) but 'That's funny ...'"
"One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
"You must keep sending work out you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist."
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."
Isaac Asimov Quotations
No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo
To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed
Johann von Goethe
No mind should submit their mind to another mind He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still -- that's my motto. I won't be brainwashed.
Muriel Spark
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
Thomas Jefferson
"The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation."
Anne Rice
The problem is that Americans would like to be independent of the rest of the world ... Except the world ain't that way. Trying to be independent of the rest of the world is to commit suicide.
Ben Bova
How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself.
Publilius Syrus
"If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf."
Bob Hope
"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen."
Robert Bresson
It's impossible to reach good conclusions with bad information. . . . We're all entitled to our own opinions. But none of us can afford to be wrong in our facts.
Mort Crim