336 quotes
Start with a planet like the earth, with a complement of simple compounds bound to exist upon it, add the energy of a nearby sun, and you are bound to end with nucleic acids. You can't avoid it.
I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
Philosophy on the Go (2007)
Science fiction always bases its future visions on changes in the levels of science and technology. And the reason for that consistency is simply that—in reality—all other changes throughout history have been irrelevant and trivial.
It is better to know — even if the knowledge endured only for the moment that comes before destruction — than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder.
The New Hugo Winners: Award-winning Science Fiction Stories Vol. 1 (1989)
There isn’t an instinct around that can’t give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway. In fact, if you go about it right, education gets easier with each generation.
Robot series (1950)
Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.
I received other options but nothing ever happened and I developed what I call Asimov’s First Law of Hollywood, which goes as follows:
“Whatever happens, nothing happens!”
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
The novels I have been writing lately are the kind I wrote in the 1950s. (I have been criticized for this by some critics, but the day I pay attention to critics is the day the sky will fall.)
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
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."
Well, it was healthy to miss once in a while. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance.
Empire novels (1950)
As the Reagan administration continued to transfer funds from hospitals and other much-needed social institutions into the pockets of arms manufacturers and politicians, working conditions grew steadily worse.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
“Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence?”
Pelorat said, “If you list it like that—”
“List it any way you please,” said Trevize. “I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.”
The Foundation series (1951)
No matter how the conomy and sociology of the neighbouring sectors of the Galaxy changes, there was always an elite; and it is always the characteristic of an elite that it possesses leisure as the great reward of its elite-hood.
The Foundation series (1951)
I know nothing of that directly; I only know what I have been told by other young ones who couldn't have known directly either. I want to find out the truth about them and the wanting has grown until there is more of curiosity in me than fear.
The Gods Themselves (1972)
To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was “system,” an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was “industry,” indecision when right was “caution,” and blind stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”
The Foundation series (1951)
[N]o matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.
The Near East (1968)
[Creationists] make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
[S]cientific writing is abhorrently stylized and places a premium on poor quality.
Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (1975)
[W]hen one plays for top prizes one must be prepared to pay top stakes.
The Roman Empire (1967)
Man proposes and old age disposes—
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)