

The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.

My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn't worth discussing.

The history of science is full of revolutionary advances that required small insights that anyone might have had, but that, in fact, only one person did.

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.

A fire-eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.

The secret of the successful fool is that he's no fool at all.

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.

Force yourself to laugh and you'll soon find something to laugh about. A being causes his own feelings. Splurge on it!

Computerization eliminates the middleman.

Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

Radiation, unlike smoking, drinking, and overeating, gives no pleasure, so the possible victims object.

Working ten hour days allows you to fall behind twice as fast as you could working five hour days.

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket.

There was this superstitious fear on the part of the pygmies of the present for the relics of the giants of the past.

You wait for the war to happen like vultures. If you want to help, prevent the war. Don't save the remnants. Save them all.

Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.
Longer Version:
Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency." -R. Daneel Olivaw.

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.

I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today.
Longer Version:
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 every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred?

Naturally, since the Sumerians didn't know what caused the flood anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.).

A myth or legend is simply not made up out of a vacuum. Nothing is -- or can be. Somehow there is a kernel of truth behind it, however distorted that might be.

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.

The first problem of living is to minimize friction with the crowds that surround you on all sides.

The City was the acme of efficiency, but it made demands of its inhabitants. It asked them to live in a tight routine and order their lives under a strict and scientific control.

Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you.

It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.

Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.

Writing is my only interest. Even speaking is an interruption.

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

To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn.

Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end.

It's humbling to think that all animals, including human beings, are parasites of the plant world.

It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research.

All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger.

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.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

There's so much knowledge to be had that specialists cling to their specialties as a shield against having to know anything about anything else. They avoid being drowned.

The spell of power never quite releases its hold.

Love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.

Science is a set of rules to keep us from telling lies to each other. All scientists really have is a reputation for telling the truth.

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.

Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.

The whole world might know you and acclaim you, but someone in the past, forever unreachable, forever unknowing, spoils it all.

What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes.

It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to UNlearn.

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

Flattery is useful when dealing with youngsters.
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