Isaac Asimov
Title: Professor Isaac Asimov
Birth Name: Isaac Yudovich Ozimov
Birthdate: June 2, 1920
Birthplace: Petrovichi, Russia
Date of Death: April 6, 1992
Occupation: Author and Biochemist
Profile: Professor of biochemistry at Boston University and one of the most
prolific science fiction writers of all time. Best known for
Nightfall.
Website: http://www.asimovonline.com/
Number of Quotes: 46
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
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.
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.
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.
Creationists make it sound as though a theory
is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
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.
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.
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.
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
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.
I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.
I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
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.
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.
It is not only the living who are killed in war.
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?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
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.
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.
Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
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.
Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
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.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka!
but That's funny...
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of 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.
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
To insult someone we call him bestial
. For deliberate cruelty and nature, human
might be the greater insult.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
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.
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Last on Earth
