Quotes from Isaac Asimov

You get it? There isn't any industrial research group of any size that isn't trying to develop a space-warp engine, and Consolidated and U.S. Robots have the lead on the field with our super robot-brains. Now that they've managed to foul theirs up, we have a clear field. That's the nub, the . . . uh . . . motivation. It will take them six years at least to build another and they're sunk, unless they can break ours, too, with the same problem.

PSYCHOHISTORY … Gaal Dornick, using non-mathematical concepts, has defined psychohistory to be that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli … … Implicit in all these definitions is the assumption that the human conglomerate being dealt with is sufficiently large for valid statistical treatment.

TRADERS … With psychohistoric inevitability, economic control of the Foundation grew. The traders grew rich; and with riches came power … It is sometimes forgotten that Hober Mallow began life as an ordinary trader. It is never forgotten that he ended it as the first of the Merchant Princes

Öylesine gülünç olacaks?n?z ki herkes bir hiç olduÄŸunuza inanacak. Bunun da tek amac? hayat?n?z? korumak... Gerçekten yaÅŸanmaya deÄŸer olup olmad??? ÅŸüpheli olan hayat?n?z?...

But it was Paradise in one way," said Steiner at last. "How?" "All the time we were there the woman did not speak.

En mi respuesta le decía: Avram, tú y yo somos judíos que vivimos en un país que es no judío en un noventa y cinco por ciento y nos las arreglamos bastante bien. Me pregunto cómo nos desenvolveríamos, Avram, si fuéramos gentiles y viviéramos en un país con un noventa y cinco por ciento de judíos ortodoxos. Memorias

Trantor becomes more specialized, it becomes more vulnerable, less able to defend itself. Further, as it becomes more and more the administrative centre of Empire, it becomes a greater prize. As the Imperial succession becomes more and more uncertain, and the feuds among the great families more rampant, social responsibility disappears.

Culture dictates invention

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

The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop. Q.

Sei tu dalla parte del torto, John, quando parli di diritti "inalienabili". Quello che tu chiami un "diritto" è meramente un privilegio, generalmente accettato. Ciò che la società accetta, quello è diritto; il resto non conta.»

I don't bother with the outside myself. The last time I was in the open was three years ago. You see it once, you know and that's all there is to it.

It was falling apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation—and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe.

Sentimentele pe care le ai sunt, desigur, rezultatul evolu?iei tale ?i nu trebuie condamnate spuse Primul Vorbitor. Trebuie doar schimbate.

Discipline today for a better life tomorrow is a true expression of First Law if robots could only be made to see it.

You see, Peter, machines can't fall in love, but--even when it's hopeless and horrifying--women can!

It was odd how that last deed caught the imagination of the world. All that Andrew had done before had not swayed them. But he had finally accepted even death to be human, and the sacrifice was too great to be rejected.

But this I can tell you: Terminus and its companion Foundation at the other end of the Galaxy are the seeds of the Renascence and the future founders of the Second Galactic Empire. And it is the present crisis that is starting Terminus off to that climax.

Unsafe, sire. He lives in the past. He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others.

But the house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter's mad little life was in danger.

Devers was morosely savage.

There was a thin, reedy quaver in the air, that wavered raggedly up the scale. It hovered, dropped and caught itself, gained in body, and swooped into a booming crash that had the effect of a thunderous split in a veiling curtain.

Naturally, trouble makes for greater drama than does happiness, and it asks for more in the way of human response

Legalistically, you may appeal to the Emperor, but would get no hearing. The Emperor today is not the Emperor of an Entun dynasty, you know. Trantor, I am afraid, is in the hands of the aristocratic families, members of which compose the Commission of Public Safety. This is a development which is well predicted by psychohistory.