Asimov, Isaac (Isaac Asimov)

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
-- Isaac Asimov

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
-- Isaac Asimov

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

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

Science can be introduced to children well or poorly. If poorly, children can be turned away from science; they can develop a lifelong antipathy; they will be in a far worse condition than if they had never been introduced to science at all.
-- Isaac Asimov

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
-- Isaac Asimov

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

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

There's something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul.
-- Isaac Asimov

Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.
-- Isaac Asimov

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
-- Isaac Asimov

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know
-- Isaac Asimov

The facts, gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching.
-- Isaac Asimov

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
-- Isaac Asimov

To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn.
-- Isaac Asimov

True literacy is becoming an arcane art and the United States is steadily dumbing down.
-- Isaac Asimov

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.
-- Isaac Asimov

Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.
-- Isaac Asimov

The Law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.
-- Isaac Asimov

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.
-- Isaac Asimov

I write for the same reason I breathe
-- Isaac Asimov

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

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject...they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.
-- Isaac Asimov

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
-- Isaac Asimov

I type and think at 90 words a minute.
-- Isaac Asimov

Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.
-- Isaac Asimov

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.
-- Isaac Asimov

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today
-- Isaac Asimov

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. 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.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

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

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.
-- Isaac Asimov

t takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.
-- Isaac Asimov

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.
-- Isaac Asimov

United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the world.
-- Isaac Asimov

Night was a wonderful time in Brooklyn in the 1930s. Air conditioning was unknown except in movie houses, and so was television. There was nothing to keep one in the house. Furthermore, few people owned automobiles, so there was nothing to carry one away. That left the streets and the stoops. The very fullness served as an inhibition to crime.
-- Isaac Asimov

No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field.
-- Isaac Asimov

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

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection...That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
-- Isaac Asimov

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
-- Isaac Asimov