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Isaac Asimov Quotes - Page 14

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

I do not use airplanes. They strike me as unsporting. You can have an automobile accident-and survive. You can be on a sinking ship-and survive. You can be in an earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption, tornado, what you

I do not use airplanes. They strike me as unsporting. You can have an automobile accident-and survive. You can be on a sinking ship-and survive. You can be in an earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption, tornado, what you will-and survive. But if your plane crashes, you do not survive. And I say the heck with it.

Funny, Airplane, Fire

All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.

Choices, Insanity, Humanity

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

Life, Writing, Breathe

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

We mythologists know very well that myths and legends contain borrowings, moral lessons, nature cycles, and a hundred other distorting influences, and we labor to cut them away and get to what might be a kernel of truth. In fact, these same techniques must be applied to the most sober histories, for no one writes the clear and apparent truth-if such a thing can even be said to exist.

Writing, Cutting, Lessons

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation and Earth”, p.379, Spectra

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.

Real, School, Library

Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.54, Bantam

Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.

Rain, Sea, Rivers

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

Writing, Science, Fiction

1975 'How Easy To See The Future', in Natural History, Apr.

An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.

Atoms, Weapons, Way

Isaac Asimov (1951). “Foundation”

It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.

Distance, Space, Focus

Isaac Asimov (2004). “Foundation and Empire”, p.111, Spectra

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

Fire, Kindles, Ifs

Isaac Asimov (1951). “The foundation trilogy: three classics of science fiction”

Do not forget that a traitor within our ranks, known to us, can do more harm to the enemy than a loyal man can do good to us.

Men, Enemy, Loyal

Isaac Asimov (2010). “Pebble in the Sky”, p.99, Macmillan

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.

Writing, Creative, World

There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.

Dream, Giving, Peculiar

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation's Edge”, p.204, Spectra

Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see.

Stars, World, Courses

Isaac Asimov (2010). “Pebble in the Sky”, p.112, Macmillan

I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

Believe, Book, Way

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

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Reading, Book, Men

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.

Knowledge, Shields, Specialists

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.89, Spectra

The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers.

Art, Suffering, Doe

"The Roving Mind". Book by Isaac Asimov. Chapter 25, 1983.

Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous.

Hair, Accustomed, Seems

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.225, Spectra

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.

Stronger, Normal, Resentment

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

Law, Long, Robots

'I, Robot' (1950) in 'Runaround'

Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man.

Wall, Men, Insecurity

Isaac Asimov (2004). “Second Foundation”, p.100, Spectra

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.'

Rain, Love You, Thinking

Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.426, Bantam

[A]ll knowledge is one. When a light brightens and illuminates a corner of a room, it adds to the general illumination of the entire room. Over and over again, scientific discoveries have provided answers to problems that had no apparent connection with the phenomena that gave rise to the discovery.

Light, Discovery, Illumination

Isaac Asimov (1992). “Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos”, Plume Books

A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.

Science, Unlikely, Neat

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