Quotes by Isaac Asimov (Page 2 of 2)

The human brain, then, is the most complicated organization of matter that we know.

Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.

The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

Oh, for a pin that would puncture pretension!

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

Economics is on the side of humanity now.

If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success -- but only if you persist.

Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.

Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world, and it will seem to them incredible that there was ever anybody who doubted the value of space and wanted to turn his or her back on the Universe.

Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil--but there is no way around them.

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.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

To insult someone we call him bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, human might be the greater insult.

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

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.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

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.

It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by -- Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

John 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.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

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.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.