Isaac Asimov Quotes

1920–1992 United States

Isaac Asimov (c. 2 January 1920 – 6 April 1992) was a Russian-born American biochemist who was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His works include the Foundation series and I, Robot.

United States
Essayists
Humorists
Memoirists
Novelists

Also known as: Asimov, Asimov, Isaac, Isaac asimov, The Foundation Series

Random Isaac Asimov quote

336 quotes

He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds.

The Foundation series (1951)

Properly read, it is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

Religion is more conservative than any other aspect of human life.

The Near East (1968)

To us, all life is a series of accidents to be met with improvisations. To them, all life is purposive and should be met with precalculation.

The Foundation series (1951)

You are a valuable subject, Brodrig. You always suspect far more than is necessary, and I have but to take half your suggested precautions to be utterly safe.

The Foundation series (1951)

We are meant to know, or we are amoebae.

The New Hugo Winners: Award-winning Science Fiction Stories Vol. 1 (1989)

Genes aren’t everything. Environment counts too, and environment can bend into actual psychosis where genes indicate only a potentiality for a particular psychosis.

Robot series (1950)

Ten thousand years ago, human beings devised the techniques of agriculture and herding and slowly begin the process of destroying the environment by overgrazing and by overfarming.

I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)

It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.

The Foundation series (1951)

Violence … is the last refuge of the incompetent.

The Law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.

Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988)

“You make interstellar politics sound a very dirty game.”
“It is, but disapproving of dirt doesn’t remove it.”

Empire novels (1950)

There is a kind of selective memory that afflicts men when they view the past. They see the good and overlook the evil.

The Roman Empire (1967)

I don’t want to believe it just because I want to believe it.

The Foundation series (1951)

Seldon found himself raging at the passage of time.

The Foundation series (1951)

The robot has wanted Fallom all along, Janov.

The Foundation series (1951)

Without the interplay of human against human, the chief interest in life is gone; most of the intellectual values are gone; most of the reason for living is gone.

Robot series (1950)

It is no one’s privilege to despise another. It is only a hard-won right after long experience.

The Complete Stories, Volume 1 (1990)

Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing.

The Foundation series (1951)

The best way to describe anyone is to give an example of the kind of thing he would do.

In Joy Still Felt (1980)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Isaac Asimov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.