Isaac Asimov

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

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.

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.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!

If a conclusion is not poetically balanced it cannot be scientifically true.

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.

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.

Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

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.

It is almost impossible to think of something no one has thought of before, but it is always possible to add different frills.

Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.

The law of conservation of energy tells us we cant get something for nothing but we refuse to believe it.

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. Youd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.

It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred!

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.

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

The stars, like dust, encircle me In living mists of light; And all of space I seem to see In one vast burst of sight.

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.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

How bright and beautiful a comet is as it flies past our planetprovided it does fly past it.

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

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.

The final end of Eternity, and the beginning of Infinity

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

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.

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

At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.

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

There are no nations There is only humanity. And if we dont come to understand that right soon there will be no nations because there will be no humanity.

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

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, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.

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

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

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

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

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

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.

Its one thing to have guts its another to be crazy.

Properly read the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted to fact.

Nonviolence doesn't always work -- but violence never does.

The troubles of modern life come from being divorced from nature.

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

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

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

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

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

I write for the same reason I breathe because if I didnt I would die.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.

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.

You dont need to predict the future. Just choose a future a good future a useful future and make the kind of prediction that will alter human emotions and reactions in such a way that the future you predicted will be brought about. Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing whats right.

Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. Its the transition thats troublesome.

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

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

Boasts are wind and deeds are hard.

The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.

The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that.

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

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

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka!', but That's funny

Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves using reason as their guide that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.

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

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.

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.

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

Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence Pelorat said If you list it like that List it any way you please said Trevize. I dont believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.

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.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

It is not only the living who are killed in war.

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.

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