Quotes from Isaac Asimov

My fury does not blind me.

Modern theoretical mathematicians frown at this and make haughty remarks such as But you are making the unwarranted assumption that the line is the same length when it is straight as when it was curved. I imagine the honest workman organizing the construction of the local temple, face with such an objection, would have solved matters by throwing the objector into the River Nile.

You can't have geniuses and saints without having people far outside the norm, and I don't see how you can have such things on only one side of the norm. There is bound to be a certain symmetry.

Everyone believes it just the same. I mean all this talk about the Prophet Hari Seldon and how he appointed the Foundation to carry on his commandments that there might some day be a return to the Earthly Paradise: and how anyone who disobeys his commandments will be destroyed for eternity. They believe it. I've presided at festivals, and I'm sure they

All sources of energy in our Universe run down. We can't help that. Everything is downhill in just one direction, and we can force a temporary uphill, backward, only by taking advantage of some greater downhill in the vicinity. If we want useful energy forever, we need a road that is downhill both ways. That is a paradox in our Universe; it stands to reason that whatever is downhill one way is uphill going back.

The molecules of air caught in the sudden surge of atomic disruption, tore into glowing, burning ions, and marked out the blinding thin line that struck at Mallow's heart—and splashed!

Ah, the future good!" Leebig's eyes glowed with passion and he seemed to grow less conscious of his listener and correspondingly more talkative. "A simple concept, you think. How many human beings are willing to accept a trifling inconvenience for the sake of a large future good?

And the ship died! For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.

Didn't you ever have a robot go wrong on you? It's your anniversary, you know." And so help me she blushed. She said, "Robots have gone wrong on me. Heavens, how long it's been since I thought of it. Why, it was almost forty years ago. Certainly! 2021! And I was only thirty-eight. Oh, my—I'd rather not talk about it.

en la Historia no hay finales felices, solo momentos críticos que se superan.

It is unscientific to suppose meaningless cases.

Cooper, coming from an era in which advertisement was not as wildly proliferative as it was in the later Centuries of Primitive times, found all this difficult to appreciate. He said, "Isn't it rather disgusting the way these people blow their own horn? Who would be fool enough to believe a person's boastings about his own products? Would he admit defects? Is he likely to stop at any exaggeration?

Quizá! Sus opiniones son suyas, naturalmente. Aún es usted muy joven. —Es un defecto que la mayor parte de la gente tiene en cierto período de su vida.

Anda, tonto. Ahora haz una mueca de disgusto y mírame como un patito moribundo antes de reclinar tu cabeza en mi hombro para que yo acaricie tus cabellos llenos de electricidad estática. Buscabas una mentira piadosa, ¿verdad? Esperabas que yo te dijera: «¡Contigo seré feliz en cualquier parte, Toran!», o bien, «¡Las mismas profundidades interestelares serían mi hogar, amor mío, teniéndote a mi lado!» Vamos, admítelo.

La violencia es el último recurso del incopetente

Pero ya lo ve, no se pueden hacer diferencias entre un robot y el mejor de los humanos.

Unimaginative enough to face danger without fear

Lord Dorwin took snuff. He also had long hair, curled intricately and, quite obviously, artificially, to which were added a pair of fluffy, blond sideburns, which he fondled affectionately. Then, too, he spoke in overprecise statements and left out all the r's.

There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination of man's mastery over the environment.

If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown.

multitud de ineptos literarios salen adelante por la inseguridad intelectual de sus lectores; y montones de plumíferos escriben grandes fárragos de mala -poesía- y viven de ello.

Votbinnik had Jandorf practically in Zugzwang (his pieces all tied up, Bill explained)

Un robot no puede lastimar a la humanidad o, por falta de acción, permitir que la humanidad sufra daños. La considero ahora la ley Cero de la Robótica. La primera ley debería decir: Un robot no debe dañar a un ser humano, o permitir, por inacción, que el ser humano sufra algún daño, a menos que tal acción viole la ley Cero de la Robótica.

La muerte, excelencia, es un fenómeno tan absoluto e irrevocable, que ciertamente debe haber alguna otra alternativa.