Isaac Asimov Quotes

How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? What tremendous feat of dialectic could carry with it a tenth the power of a single gutted ship with its ghastly cargo?

Sizzling Saturn, we’ve got a lunatic robot on our hands.

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' Is that it, Daneel?"
Daneel paused, then said, "I am not certain what is meant by the smell of a rose, but if a rose on Earth is the common flower that is called a rose on Aurora, and if by its 'smell' you mean a property that can be detected, sensed, or measured by human beings, then surely calling a rose by another sound-combination — and holding all else equal — would not affect the smell or any other of its intrinsic properties."
"True. And yet changes in name do result in changes in perception where human beings are concerned."
"I do not see why, Partner Elijah."
"Because human beings are often illogical, Daneel. It is not an admirable characteristic.

sincere friendship through trade will be many times better than an insecure overlordship,

Pelorat sighed. “I will never understand people.” “There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.”

The colonization of space is the only possible salvation of Earth.

Öğrenmek demek ufkunuzu genişletmek, daha fazla şey yaşamak ve kendinize farklı yaşam alanları yaratmak demektir.

... Bilgi yalnızca güç değildir; bilgi mutluluktur ve bilginin size öğretilmesi ise entelektüel manada, sevilmekle eşdeğerdir.

Their whole training has been authoritarian. They are sure that the Emperor, just because he is the Emperor, is all-powerful. And they are sure that the Board of Trustees, simply because it is the Board of Trustees acting in the name of the Emperor, cannot be in a position where it does not give the orders.

Gecenin bastırması, kökleri insanlık tarihinin başlarına kadar uzanan büyük bir psikolojik huzursuzluk yaratır. Gece daima bir güvensizlik ve korku zamanıdır ve cesaret güneşle birlikte batıp gitmiştir.

For the first time the specific and express thought came to him. And though he pushed it away in horror, he knew that, having once come, it would return. The thought was simply this: That he would ruin Eternity, if he had to. The worst of it was that he knew he had the power to do it.

hay ciertas cosas que la Humanidad no está destinada a conocer

[S]cientists have pushed back the horizon of time from the biblical 6,000 years to 4,600,000,000 years for the age of Earth—a 760,000-fold increase.

The robot had no feelings, only positronic surges that mimicked those feelings. (And perhaps human beings had no feelings, only neuronic surges that were interpreted as feelings.)

"And just how did you arrive at that remarkable conclusion, Mr. Mayor?"

"In a rather simple way. It merely required the use of that much-neglected commodity — common sense. You see, there is a branch of human knowledge known as symbolic logic, which can be used to prune away all sorts of clogging deadwood that clutters up human language."

"What about it?" said Fulham.

"I applied it. Among other things, I applied it to this document here. I didn't really need to for myself because I knew what it was all about, but I think I can explain it more easily to five physical scientists by symbols rather than by words."

Hardin removed a few sheets of paper from the pad under his arm and spread them out. "I didn't do this myself, by the way," he said. "Muller Holk of the Division of Logic has his name signed to the analyses, as you can see."

Pirenne leaned over the table to get a better view and Hardin continued: "The message from Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who wrote it were men of action rather than men of words. It boils down easily and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, when in symbols is what you see, and which in words, roughly translated is, 'You give us what we want in a week, or we take it by force.'"

There was silence as the five members of the Board ran down the line of symbols, and then Pirenne sat down and coughed uneasily.

Hardin said, "No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?"

"Doesn't seem to be."

The final end of Eternity, and the beginning of Infinity