Isaac Asimov Quotes

I thought you could feel love for me. I don't say you loved me, but it seemed to me you could. I never had that and, although in ancient literature they talked of it, I didn't know what they meant any more than when men in those same books talked about 'honor' and killed each other for its sake.

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?

En toda la Historia humana, ninguna otra inteligencia nos ha amenazado, que
nosotros sepamos. Bastaría con que esto continuase durante unos pocos siglos,
tal vez poco más de una milésima del tiempo que llevamos de civilización,
para que estuviésemos a salvo. A fin de cuentas –y aquí sintió Trevize una súbita aprensión que se obligó a pasar por alto– no es como si ya tuviésemos al
enemigo entre nosotros. Y no bajó la mirada para no encontrarse con los ojos
reflexivos de Fallom (hermafrodita, transductora, diferente) que le estaban mirando, fijos, insondables.

Predicting the future is a hopeless, thankless task, with ridicule to begin with and, all too often, scorn to end with.

Isn't it sad that you can tell people that the ozone layer is being depleted, the forests are being cut down, the deserts are advancing steadily, that the greenhouse effect will raise the sea level 200 feet, that overpopulation is choking us, that pollution is killing us, that nuclear war may destroy us - and they yawn and settle back for a comfortable nap. But tell them that the Martians are landing, and they scream and run.

What phrase was that, sir?" "You said something about interviewing people face to — — " He shook his head, his tongue dabbing quickly at his lips. "I would rather not say it. I think you know what I mean. The phrase conjured up the most striking picture of the two of us breathing — breathing one another's breath." The Solarian shuddered. "Don't you find that repulsive?" "I don't know that I've ever thought of it so." "It seems so filthy a habit. And as you said it and the picture rose in my mind, I realized that after all we were in the same room and even though I was not facing you, puffs of air that had been in your lungs must be reaching me and entering mine. With my sensitive frame of mind — — " Baley said, "Molecules all over Solaria's atmosphere have been in thousands of lungs. Jehoshaphat! They've been in the lungs of animals and the gills of fish.

The true discovery of America by mankind came when those first hunting bands crossed over from Siberia 25,000 years ago. This, however, never seems to count. When people speak of the "discovery of America" they invariably mean its discovery by Europeans.

For a wise man, I have been told, once said, ‘Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate in empty phrases.’ But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem.

It wasn't to be endured! For half an hour, the Captain shot off salvo after salvo of the very worst sort of profanity. He started with the sun and ran down the list of planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, to the very meteors themselves. He was starting on the nearer fixed stars, when he collapsed from sheer nervous exhaustion. He was so excited that he never thought to ask us what we were doing in the storeroom in the first place, and for that Whitefield and I were duly grateful.

But Captain Bartlett is no fool. Having purged his system of its nervous tension, he saw clearly that that which cannot be cured must be endured.

He started blindly but within a month he had that feeling that every scientist recognizes — the endless click-click as unexpected pieces fall into place, as annoying anomalies become anomalous no more — It was the feel of Truth.

But what's the difference how they act? How about how I feel? I love Robutt and that's what counts.

To [the government] it didn't matter what happened to the American people as long as america in the abstract was kept strong.

He turned to look at her, and she was smiling at him. It was Noÿs as she had been, and his own heart beating as it had used to.

Confidence is rewarded, apparently. There was a homewhen proverb that went, "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."

THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.