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Isaac Asimov Quotes - Page 12

All Quotes Army Art Atheism Atheist Business Change Children Choices Coincidence Creativity Curiosity Death Democracy Desire Diversity Dying Earth Education Effort Evolution Fear Feelings Fighting Funny Future Giving Heart Heaven History Humanity Ignorance Imagination Insecurity Inspirational Intuition Knowledge Learning Life Literature Love Lying Math Memories Moon Motivational Overpopulation Past Peace Philosophy Prophet Rage Rain Reading Reality Rejection Religion Running School Science Sleep Speed Stupidity Suffering Technology Today Truth Understanding Universe War Winning Wisdom Work Out Writing

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for.

Book, Writing, Law

Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

Science is dangerous. There is no question but that poison gas, genetic engineering, and nuclear weapons and power stations are terrifying. It may be that civilization is falling apart and the world we know is coming to an end. In that case, why no turn to religion and look forward to the Day of Judgment, ... [being] lifted into eternal bliss ... [and] watching the scoffers and disbelievers writhe forever in torment.

Fall, Science, Engineering

But life is glorious when it is happy; days are carefree when they are happy; the interplay of thought and imagination is far and superior to that of muscle and sinew. Let me tell you, if you don't know it from your own experience, that reading a good book, losing yourself in the interest of words and thoughts, is for some people (me, for instance) an incredible intensity of happiness.

Book, Reading, People

Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.58, Bantam

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.

Truth, Promise, Doe

However, I continue to try and I continue, indefatigably, to reach out. There's no way I can single-handedly save the world or, perhaps, even make a perceptible difference - but how ashamed I would be to let a day pass without making one more effort.

Differences, Effort, Trying

Writing is a lonely job. Even if a writer socializes regularly, when he gets down to the real business of his life, it is he and his type writer or word processor. No one else is or can be involved in the matter.

Lonely, Jobs, Real

Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.134, Bantam

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.

Intuition, Mind, Twenties

Isaac Asimov (1986). “Foundation Trilogy”, Del Rey

I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.

May, Littles, Way

Isaac Asimov (1986). “Foundation Trilogy”, Del Rey

Tens of millions of Americans who neither know or understand the actual arguments for, or even against, evolution, march in the Army of the Night with their Bibles held high

Army, Night, Evolution

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

Writing, Interest, Interruptions

Early in my school career, I turned out to be an incorrigible disciplinary problem. I could understand what the teacher was saying as fast as she could say it, I found time hanging heavy, so I would occasionally talk to my neighbor. That was my great crime, I talked in school.

Teacher, School, Science

Isaac Asimov (2002). “It's Been a Good Life”, Pyr Books

After years of finding mathematics easy, I finally reached integral calculus and came up against a barrier. I realized that this was as far as I could go, and to this day I have never successfully gone beyond it in any but the most superficial way.

Years, Way, Gone

Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.141, Bantam

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

Mean, Thinking, Curiosity

As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived.

Artist, Sea, Cities

The vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic.

Believe, Good Day, Thinking

In a properly automated and educated world, then, machines may prove to be the true humanizing influence. It may be that machines will do the work that makes life possible and that human beings will do all the other things that make life pleasant and worthwhile

Machines, World, May

It's your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion.

Fiction, Emotion, Study

Isaac Asimov (1983). “The Robot Collection: The Robot Novels”, Doubleday Books

The Tyranni rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth.

Believe, Simple, Space

Isaac Asimov (2008). “The Stars, Like Dust”, p.28, Tor Books

At two-tenths the speed of light, dust and atoms might not do significant damage even in a voyage of 40 years, but the faster you go, the worse it is--space begins to become abrasive. When you begin to approach the speed of light, hydrogen atoms become cosmic-ray particles, and they will fry the crew. ...So 60,000 kilometers per second may be the practical speed limit for space travel.

Two, Hydrogen Atom, Space

What do you call that nice, shiny white metal they use to make sidings and airplanes out of? Aluminum, right? Aluminum, pronounced 'uh-LOO-mih-num', right? Anybody knows that! But do you know how the British spell it? 'Aluminium', pronounced 'Al-yoo-MIH-nee-um'. Ever hear anything so ridiculous? The French and Germans spell it 'aluminium', too, but they're foreigners who don't speak Earth-standard. You'd think the British, however, using our language, would be more careful

Nice, Airplane, Thinking

Isaac Asimov (1975). “Of matters great and small”

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.

War, Waiting, Want

Isaac Asimov (1990). “The Complete Stories”, Broadway Books

The Iranians are Moslems and the Iraqi are Moslems. Both are certain that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet and believe it with all their hearts. And yet, at the moment, Iraq doesn't trust Iran worth a damn, and Iran trusts Iraq even less than that. In fact, Iran is convinced that Iraq is in the pay of the Great Satan (that's God-fearing America, in case you've forgotten) and Iraq counters with the accusation that it is Iran who is in the pay of the Great Satan. Neither side is accusing the Godless Soviets of anything, which is a puzzle

Believe, Heart, Iran

So, then, what is style? There are two chief aspects of any piece of writing: 1) what you say and 2) how you say it. The former is "content" and the latter is "style."

Writing, Two, Style

Isaac Asimov (1984). “Opus 300”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love so what difference would it make?

Differences, Robots, Might

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation's Edge”, p.420, Spectra

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

Writing, Essence, Fiction Stories

"My Own View". "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Book edited by Robert Holdstock, 1978.

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