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Isaac Asimov Quotes - Page 8

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 am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.

Atheist, Long, Atheism

Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

One would suppose that the battle for religious liberty was won in the United States two hundred years ago. However, in the time since, and right now, powerful voices are always raised in favor of bigotry and thought control. It is useful, then, to have a compendium of the thoughts of great men and women of all faiths (and of none) on the subject, to convince us that we men and woman of freedom are not and never have been alone.

Religious, Powerful, Men

How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? What tremendous feat of dialectic could carry with it a tenth the power of a single gutted ship with its ghastly cargo?

War, Men, Looks

Isaac Asimov (1952). “Triangle: The currents of space; Pebble in the sky; The stars, like dust”

The essential building block is...the true love that is impossible to define for those who have never experienced it and unnecessary to define for those who have.

Block, Essentials, Impossible

Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict---its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself---what's the expression---ah, yes, 'not with a bang, but a whimper,' as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.

War, Expression, Bangs

Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young.

Men, Thinking, Intuition

Isaac Asimov (2010). “Pebble in the Sky”, p.108, Macmillan

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.

Robots, Common, Existence

"Visit to the World's Fair of 2014" by Isaac Asimov, archive.nytimes.com. August 16, 1964.

The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has.

Taken, Years, Matter

Isaac Asimov (1989). “Asimov on science: a 30-year retrospective”, Doubleday Books

When life is so harsh that a man loses all hope in himself, then he raises his eyes to a shining rock, worshipping it, just to find hope again, rather than looking to his own acts for hope and salvation. Yes, atheism IS a redemptive belief. It is theism that denies man's own redemptive nature.

Eye, Men, Rocks

In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses.

Thinking, Individual, Easier

Isaac Asimov (1991). “Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine”

Past glories are poor feeding.

Past, Glory, Poor

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

It seems to me that God is a convenient invention of the human mind

Mind, Invention, Humans

All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.

People, Earth, Inches

Isaac Asimov (1976). “The planet that wasn't”, Doubleday Books

There is no more desire to live past one's time than to die before it.

Death, Past, Desire

I have never written a book that didn't teach me far more than it taught my reader.

Book, Writing, Taught

Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

Mathematical Equations, Fuzzy, Substitutes

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

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.

Math, Numbers, Income

Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.25, Spectra

All the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy ... could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed.

Wall, Loneliness, Men

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

Drinking, Science, Giving

The Journal of NIH Research, 2, p. 30, 1990.

No matter how carefully records are kept and filed and computerized, they grow fuzzy with time. Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate--like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history--until it degenerates into fables.

Dust, History, Lapses

Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs.

Law, Class, Desire

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

... you just can't differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.

Robots, Humans, Differentiate

Isaac Asimov (1950). “I, Robot”, Roc

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.

Wise, Wisdom, Ignorance

"The New Hugo Winners: Award Winning Science Fiction Stories". Volume 1, p. 215, 1989.

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.

Thinking, Mind, Facts

There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?

Moon, Space, Escaping

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