Isaac Asimov Quotes

No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth...

There is no Master but the Master,” he said, “and QT-1 is his prophet.

I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence...

If a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true.

A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of consi...

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think tha...

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

Well, sir to say that when the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable,...

Imagine that. Terrible, terrible, the way we have all bent to the yoke; the affection we have for th...

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-int...

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want...

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

When I feel difficulty coming on I switch to another book I'm writing. When I get back to the probl...

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

Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going ou...

People think of education as something that they can finish. And what’s more, when they finish, it’s...

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors wh...

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

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

Above all, never think you're not good enough. Never think that. In life people will take you at you...

I have spent these last two days in concentrated introspection," said Cutie, "and the results have b...

I would argue that a truly developed country would be beyond Presidents and Kings. In a world with s...

...We now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelation...

There was something ghost-like and insubstantial about gases to these early chemists. They called li...

It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Adv...

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

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

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

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

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

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophe...

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevit...

Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, a...

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know—and yet not wise enough to control our learning an...

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No...

People think of education as something they can finish.

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing hea...

It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower ...

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

Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as t...

[What’s exciting is] the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there’s now a little extr...

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

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light w...

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smooth...

The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given u...

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

You are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you alr...

Many years later he looked through one of my books and said, "How did you learn all this, Isaac?""Fr...

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

John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bom...

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the do...

The Scientist - with capital letters and no smile.

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

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning ...

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so)...

It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you...

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of t...

I think you are wrong, partner Elijah. My briefing on human characteristics here among the people of...

It's the writing that teaches you.

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

Weak emperors mean strong viceroys.

One might suppose that reality must be held to at all costs. However, though that may be the moral t...

Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will p...

Flattery is useful when dealing with youngsters.

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

What lasts in the reader’s mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears...

It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonsc...

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

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a...

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

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-int...

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

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

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy,...

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

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophe...

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astro...

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

My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad jobthat he isn't worth d...

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

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

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and y...

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that Americ...

All evil is good become cancerous.

Past glories are poor feeding.

It is possible to be too stable. No Outer World has colonized a new planet in two and a half centuri...

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden o...

Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will ta...

We are gaining the knowledge science is giving us that. Now we need wisdom as well.

A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certa...

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No...

And now a hundred subjective years had passed in those hundred objective hours and he could no longe...

Goodbye, Hari, my love. Remember always--all you did for me.”            -I did nothing for you.”   ...

And just how did you arrive at that remarkable conclusion, Mr. Mayor?""In a rather simple way. It me...

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

In the empty expanses of space, the wandering traders need men like myself to care for the spiritual...

I shall not be alive a half decade hence,” said Seldon, “and yet it is of overpowering concern to me...

Somewhere on the world was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, ...