Isaac Asimov Quotes

The Galaxy was high in the sky and its misty lens shape stretched lazily from horizon to horizon.

Weak emperors mean strong viceroys.

He's a low-born rascal who has by unfailing flattery tickled the whims of the Emperor. He's well-hated by the court aristocracy, vermin themselves, because he can lay claim to neither family nor humility. He is the Emperor's adviser in all things, and the Emperor's tool in the worst things. He is faithless by choice but loyal by necessity. There is not a man in the Empire as subtle in villainy or as crude in his pleasures.

It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject — written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that?

Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014.

The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine. — "Visit to The World's Fair of 2014," The New York Times, August 1964

My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required.

Meaning well is a poor defense,

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

Qualquer um que viva em um mundo radioativo está fadado a crescer com medo e insegurança. [...] Isso inculca uma espécie de ansiedade em nós. [...] Só estamos felizes no espaço; é o único lugar onde podemos nos sentir seguros.

No ha dicho cuando volverá.
Hardin contestó:
-Lo sé…; ¡Pero espero que no vuelva hasta que usted y yo estemos segura y cómodamente muertos!

The fact that the general incidence of leukemia has doubled in the last two decades may be due, partly, to the increasing use of x-rays for numerous purposes. The incidence of leukemia in doctors, who are likely to be so exposed, is twice that of the general public. In radiologists … the incidence is ten times greater.

The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die — I almost believe, rationalist though I am — that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.

Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, ‘Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.’ I’m no god and I’ll contend no longer.

behind a very sturdily built and staunchly defended facade of practical, unromantic hard-headedness towards life, there was just that little pool of softness that would never show if you poked for it, but could be reached if you knew just how — and never let on that you were looking for it.

It is important to remember that the viciousness and wrongs of life stick out very plainly but that even at the worst times there is a great deal of goodness, kindness, and day-to-day decency that goes unnoticed and makes no headlines.