Quotes from Isaac Asimov

The vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it.

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.

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.

Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.

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.

It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Science can be introduced to children well or poorly. If poorly, children can be turned away from science; they can develop a lifelong antipathy; they will be in a far worse condition than if they had never been introduced to science at all.

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.

The three fundamental Rules of Robotics...One: a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm...Two:..a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law...Three: a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

You must keep sending work out you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.

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

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

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.'

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

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

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

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

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