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Isaac Asimov's Quotes

Isaac Asimov profile photo

Born: 1920-01-02
Profession: Scientist
Nation: American
Biography of Isaac Asimov

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It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Tags: Change, Society, Today

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

Tags: Give, Great, May

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

Tags: Obvious, Pays, Reputation

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

Tags: Knowing, Rather, True

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

Tags: May, Problems, Science

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

Tags: Simply, Thinking, Writing

I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

Tags: Books, Expect, Personal

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

Tags: Die, Reason, Write

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

Tags: Living, War

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

Tags: Disaster, Time, Universal

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.

Tags: Century, Living, War

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

Tags: Bad, Close, Fall

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.

Tags: Century, Living, War

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Tags: Life, Men, Read

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

Tags: Annoyance, Funny, Great

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

Tags: Life, Science, Society

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Tags: Last, Refuge, Violence

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

Tags: Funny, Hear, Science

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

Tags: Death, Life, Peaceful

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.

Tags: Hell, Life, Whole

Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

Tags: After, Drunk, Night

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

Tags: Education, Firmly

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

Tags: Computers, Fear, Lack

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

Tags: May, Science, Today

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Tags: Decision, Longer, Sensible

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

Tags: Good, Life, Yourself
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Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

Tags: Computers, Honest, Working

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

Tags: Ignorance, Knowledge, Problems

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

Tags: God, Ignorance, Today

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

Tags: Morals, Sense

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

Tags: Future, Humanity, Lost

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.

Tags: Business, Degree, Takes

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

Tags: Reader, Speed

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

Tags: Human, Nature, Someone

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

Tags: Light, Science, Single

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.

Tags: Medical, Men, Number

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.

Tags: Knowledge, Learning, Wise

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.

Tags: American, Read, Society

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

Tags: Doctor, Minutes, Six

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Tags: Impossible, Possible, Start

Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

Tags: Religion, Times, Words

For it is in giving that we receive.

Tags: Giving, Receive

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

Tags: God, Religion, Work

If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

Tags: Family, God, Work

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Tags: Compassion, God, Men

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

Tags: Heart, Peace, While

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Tags: Hatred, Love, Peace

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

Tags: Lord, Love, Loved

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Tags: Anywhere, Unless, Walking

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

Tags: Fear, Ignorance, Wisdom

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

Tags: Christ, Grace, Self

No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.

Tags: Enemy, Except, Harm

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

Tags: Face, God, Service

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

Tags: Pardoned

Where there is injury let me sow pardon.

Tags: Injury, Pardon, Sow

If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.

Tags: Against, Give, Him

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

Tags: Order, Poverty, Sun

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Tags: Him, Time, Wish

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

Tags: Consent, Help, Save

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Tags: Absence, Government, Justice

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Tags: Contrary, Miracles, Nature

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Tags: Charity, Justice, Substitute

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

Tags: May, Seek, Understand

The greatest evil is physical pain.

Tags: Evil, Greatest, Pain

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Tags: Complete, Moderation, Perfect

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

Tags: Perfection

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Tags: Evil, God, Good

There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.

Tags: Heart, Humility, Strangely

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

Tags: Ourselves, Unity, Within

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.

Tags: False, Nor, True

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

Tags: Beauty, Good, Great

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Tags: Evil, Free, Though

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

Tags: Beginning, Evil, Good

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

Tags: Angel, Cannot, Hear

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

Tags: Deep, Him, Profound

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

Tags: Grace, Horse, Rider

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

Tags: Happiness, Happy, Impossible

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.

Tags: Give, Lord, Oh

The purpose of all wars, is peace.

Tags: Peace, Purpose, Wars

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.

Tags: Evil, Passion, Wife

It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.

Tags: Cause, Makes, Punishment

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

Tags: Justice, Punishment, Unjust

Hear the other side.

Tags: Hear, Side

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.

Tags: Good, Lives, Times

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

Tags: Concepts, Here, Words

Love, and do what you like.

Tags: Love

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Tags: Command, Grant, Thou

To seek the highest good is to live well.

Tags: Good, Highest, Seek

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.

Tags: Art, Empty, Full

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.

Tags: Friend, Him, Miss

We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.

Tags: Action, Life, Pain

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

Tags: Duty, Him, Simply

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

Tags: Found, Lord, Within

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

Tags: Able, Rational, Souls

There is no possible source of evil except good.

Tags: Evil, Good, Possible

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Tags: Forsaken, Longer, Sin

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Tags: Moderation, Perfect, Total

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

Tags: Ladder, Ourselves, Themselves

The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.

Tags: Desire, Longing, Prayer

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

Tags: Experience, Mind, Thoughts
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