ISAAC ASIMOV QUOTES
American author & professor of biochemistry (1920-1992)
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centures since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Canadian Atheists Newsletter, 1994
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has 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."
ISAAC ASIMOV
"A Cult of Ignorance", Newsweek, Jan. 21, 1980
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
ISAAC ASIMOV
The Gods Themselves
I wish that I could say I was optimistic about the human race. I love us all, but we are so stupid and shortsighted that I wonder if we can lift our eyes to the world about us long enough not to commit suicide.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Yours, Isaac Asimov
Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?"
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov: A Memoir
If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Astounding Science Fiction, May 1942
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Life, Jan. 1984
All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
You don't need to predict the future. Just choose a future -- a good future, a useful future -- and make the kind of prediction that will alter human emotions and reactions in such a way that the future you predicted will be brought about. Better to make a good future than predict a bad one.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Pebble in the Sky
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.
ISAAC ASIMOV
The Secret of the Universe
I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance ... and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance ... to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth. Usually the resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, status, money...as a result of the change. Although they never advanced this as their reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their hearts.
ISAAC ASIMOV
lecture at Newark College of Engineering, Nov. 8, 1974
I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
ISAAC ASIMOV
attributed, The Quotable Intellectual
The Tyranni rule fifty worlds; they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth.
ISAAC ASIMOV
The Stars, Like Dust
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Free Inquiry, spring 1982