Isaac Asimov Quotes - Page 9

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Robots, May, Harm

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

  106 Copy quote

• Science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary-an enormous universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal; and immediate care; a world in which you are His peculiar concern.

  Isaac Asimov

  God, Science, Years

  4 Copy quote

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Organization, Brain, Matter

  Isaac Asimov (1987). “Past, Present, and Future”

  20 Copy quote

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Death, Past, Desire

  7 Copy quote

• Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

  Isaac Asimov

  Mathematical Equations, Fuzzy, Substitutes

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

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• Human beings thought with their hands. It was their hands that were the answer of curiosity, that felt and pinched and turned and lifted and hefted. There were animals that had brains of respectable size, but they had no hands and that made all the difference.

  Isaac Asimov

  Animal, Hands, Differences

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation's Edge”, p.71, Spectra

  4 Copy quote

• The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.

  Isaac Asimov

  Steps, Robots, Lasts

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

  7 Copy quote

• I don’t like anything that’s got to be. I want to know why.

  Isaac Asimov

  Want, Knows

  Isaac Asimov (2011). “The Gods Themselves”, p.90, Spectra

  5 Copy quote

• Why ... did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions -- not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

  Isaac Asimov

  Thinking, People, Trying

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Prelude to Foundation”, p.281, Spectra

  9 Copy quote

• I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

  Isaac Asimov

  Play, Atheism, Waste

  19 Copy quote

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Math, Numbers, Income

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

  6 Copy quote

• 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?

  Isaac Asimov

  Moon, Space, Escaping

  10 Copy quote

• Having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

  Isaac Asimov

  Coincidence In Life, Coincidence, Unusual

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

  14 Copy quote

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

  Isaac Asimov

  People, Earth, Inches

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

  7 Copy quote

• Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, he developed a method of communication--but one which in its clumsiness and thick-thumbed inadequacy degenerated all the delicacy of the mind into gross and guttural signaling.

  Isaac Asimov

  Communication, Men, Mind

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

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Thinking, Mind, Facts

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Wise, Wisdom, Ignorance

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

  32 Copy quote

• Any planet is 'Earth' to those that live on it.

  Isaac Asimov

  Earth, Planets

  Isaac Asimov (2010). “Pebble in the Sky”, p.110, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

• Past glories are poor feeding.

  Isaac Asimov

  Past, Glory, Poor

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

  8 Copy quote

• If there is a category of human being for whom his work ought to speak for itself, it is the writer.

  Isaac Asimov

  Speak, Categories, Humans

  1976 Comment in D L Fitzpatrick (ed) Contemporary Novelists.

  4 Copy quote

• Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.

  Isaac Asimov

  Marriage, Dark, Futility Of Life

  "Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood".

  6 Copy quote

• They absorb carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. What could be more desirable? And they look good in the bargain. Stop chopping down the rain forests and plant more saplings, and we're on our way.

  Isaac Asimov

  Rain, Oxygen, Giving

  14 Copy quote

• To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

  Isaac Asimov

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

  "The 'Threat' of Creationism". www.nytimes.com. June 14, 1981.

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• When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.

  Isaac Asimov

  Science, Ideas, Elderly

  Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1977.

  8 Copy quote

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Taught

  5 Copy quote

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