Isaac Asimov Quotes

Yıllar önce Isaac bir mektubında Lili adlı sinema filmini izlediğini ve hayali bale sahnesinde ağladığını yazmıştı:
"Beni niye ağlattığını biliyorum. Bu, aynı hayat gibi, insanlar birer birer giderler ve sen onları uğurlarsın, ta ki bir gün sıra sana gelene ve başkaları seni uğurlayana kadar. Sanırım burada önemli olan Carpe Diem - günü yakalamak - sonra geçip gitmesine izin vermektir"

I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters [...] In between two of the segments she asked me [...] "But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?" I said, "Type faster." This was widely quoted, but the "six months" was changed to "six minutes," which bothered me. It's "six months."

Very well. So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.

I can't believe you. Are you under the impression that the Second Foundation is doing this for us? That they are some sort of idealists? Isn't it clear to you from your knowledge of politics — that they are doing it for themselves?
We are the cutting edge. We are the engine, the force. We labor and sweat and bleed and weep. They merely control — adjusting an amplifier here, closing a contact there, and doing it all with ease and without risk to themselves. Then, when it is all done and when, after a thousand years of heaving and straining, we have set up the Second Galactic Empire, the people of the Second Foundation will move in as the ruling elite.

The elderly man, flushed with pleasure, was recounting in voluble fashion his experiences and impressions. His wife joined in periodically, with meticulous corrections involving completely unimportant points; these being given and taken in the best of humor.

La verdad científica está más allá de toda lealtad y deslealtad.

Si todos los seres humanos comprendieran la Historia, podrían dejar de cometer los mismos estúpidos errores una y otra vez.

A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment." "Surely," said Pelorat, "such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don't think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive.

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.

The word “robot” is from a Czech word meaning “compulsory labor.

Having reached 451 books as of now doesn't help the situation. If I were to be dying now, I would be murmuring, "Too bad! Only four hundred fifty-one." (Those would be my next-to-last words. The last ones will be: "I love you, Janet.") [They were. -Janet.]

I got the word right away. You always get the word. Wherever you are, even on the Moon or in a space settlement, bad news gets to you in seconds. Good news you might miss out on, but bad news never.

That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society." Trevize

Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed.

Subjective matter of opinion, Gaal. If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown.