Top 447 Quotes & Sayings by Isaac Asimov

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

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.

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.

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.

I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying.

When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.

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

To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is.

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.

Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.

People think of education as something that they can finish.

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.

Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.

They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism... for testing your thoughts against the universe.

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.

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

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 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."

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.