Isaac Asimov Quotes
Life is glorious when it is happy; days are carefree when they are happy; the interplay of thought and imagination is far superior to that of muscle and sinew.
The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.
The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power, it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition.
Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.
We are reaching the stage where the problems we must solve are going to become insoluble without computers. I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them.
A scientist is as weak and human as any man, but the pursuit of science may ennoble him even against his will.
Suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details?
When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable.
I don't subscribe to the thesis, 'Let the buyer beware,' I prefer the disregarded one that goes, 'Let the seller be honest.'
The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome.
The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.
It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred!
Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see.
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.
No vision of God and heaven ever experienced by the most exalted prophet can, in my opinion, match the vision of the universe as seen by Newton or Einstein
It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall prey to nonsense.
The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.
It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to UNlearn.
No one suggests that writing about science will turn the entire world into a model of judgment and creative thought. It will be enough if they spread the knowledge as widely as possible.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
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.
I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library.
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.
Considering what human beings do and have done to human beings (and to other living things as well) ... I can never imagine what the devil people think computers can add to the horrors.
Old people think young people haven't learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love.
I even got a letter from a young woman in British Columbia that began as follows: 'Today I am eighteen. I am sitting at the window, looking out at the rain, and thinking how much I love you.'
Night will always be a time of fear and insecurity, and the heart will sink with the sun.
A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.
The world is being Americanized and technologized to its limits, and that makes it dull for some people. Reaching the Moon restores the frontier and gives us the lands beyond.
Why ... did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions -- not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation.