Isaac Asimov Quotes

281 Sourced Quotes

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.

Isaac Asimov
I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation.

Isaac Asimov
The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.

Isaac Asimov
Where is the world whose people don't prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty?

Isaac Asimov
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.

Isaac Asimov
That insufferable, dull-witted donkey! That—
Hardin broke in: Not at all. He's merely the product of his environment. He doesn't understand much except that 'I got a gun and you ain't.'

Isaac Asimov
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.

Isaac Asimov
We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.

Isaac Asimov
There are limits beyond which your folly will not carry you. I am glad of that. In fact, I am relieved.

Isaac Asimov
It isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you—and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.

Isaac Asimov
It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways.

Isaac Asimov
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. 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... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

Isaac Asimov
I am not responsible for what other people think. I am responsible only for what I myself think, and I know what that is. No idea I've ever come up with has ever struck me as a divine revelation. Nothing I have ever observed leads me to think there is a God watching over me.

Isaac Asimov
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

Isaac Asimov
He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others.

Isaac Asimov
It has always been my ambition to die in harness with my head face down on a keyboard and my nose caught between two of the keys.

Isaac Asimov
What would you consider a good job?" Answered as follows: "A good job is one in which I don't have to work, and get paid a lot of money." When I heard that I cheered and yelled and felt that he should be given an A+, for he had perfectly articulated the American dream of those who despise knowledge. What a politician that kid would have made.

Isaac Asimov
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.

Isaac Asimov
A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!

Isaac Asimov
It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold.

Isaac Asimov
There's nothing like deduction. We've determined everything about our problem but the solution.

Isaac Asimov
When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

Isaac Asimov
I've lived most of my life already and I suppose I can argue myself into believing that I have no great cause to love humanity. However, only a few people have hurt me, and if I hurt everyone in return that is unconscionable usury.

Isaac Asimov
I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning.
We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like "America's right to know" and, indeed, any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.

Isaac Asimov
The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect—but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.

Isaac Asimov
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. 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.

Isaac Asimov
Every religion seems like a fantasy to outsiders, but as holy truth to those of the faith.

Isaac Asimov
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.

Isaac Asimov
If there is a misuse of power, it is on her part. My crime is that I have never labored to make myself popular — I admit that much — and I have paid too little attention to fools who are old enough to be senile but young enough to have power.

Isaac Asimov
Despite all that education and experience can do, I retain a certain level of unsophistication that I cannot eradicate and that my friends find amusing. In fact, I think I sometimes detect conspiratorial plottings among my friends to protect me against my own lack of sophistication. I don't mind. I suspect that I am never quite as unsophisticated as they think I am, but I don't mind.

Isaac Asimov