Isaac Asimov Quotes

Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world.

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

In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses.

Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.

And in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket.

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

Computerization eliminates the middleman

Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind.

Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end.

The first law of dietetics seems to be: if it tastes good, it's bad for you.

You show me someone who can't understand people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.

True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily "dumbing down."

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

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

Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.

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

There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.

If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.

It's the writing that teaches you.

Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.

Science is a set of rules to keep us from telling lies to each other. All scientists really have is a reputation for telling the truth.

Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.

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

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.

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

I am the beneficiary of a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes.

You wait for the war to happen like vultures. If you want to help, prevent the war. Don't save the remnants. Save them all.

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

All evil is good become cancerous.

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

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

It seems to me that God is a convenient invention of the human mind

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

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

Every religion seems like a fantasy to outsiders, but as holy truth to those of the faith.

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.

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

I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.

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

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

The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders.

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.

Nonsense! The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.

Scientific apparatus offers a window to knowledge, but as they grow more elaborate, scientists spend ever more time washing the windows.

I figure that if God actually does exist, he is big enough to understand an honest difference of opinion.

There seems to be a feeling that anything that is natural is good. Strychnine is natural.

Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.

There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.