Isaac Asimov
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.Collection: Science
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.Collection: Death
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.Collection: Communication
It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.Collection: Business
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.Collection: Computers
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.Collection: Computers
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.Collection: Good
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.Collection: Future
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.Collection: Inspirational
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'Collection: Science
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.Collection: Science
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.Collection: Science
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Society
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.Collection: War
It is not only the living who are killed in war.Collection: War
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.Collection: Education
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.Collection: Great
I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.Collection: Life
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.Collection: War
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.Collection: Science
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.Collection: Medical
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.Collection: Medical
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.Collection: Anger
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Government
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.
I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
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.
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.
I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
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.
Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."Collection: Ignorance
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.Collection: Believe
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.Collection: Intelligent
The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.Collection: Way
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.Collection: Feelings
What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes.Collection: Habit
Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact.Collection: Fiction
People think of education as something that they can finish.Collection: Thinking
So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.Collection: Change