Quotes from Isaac Asimov

In fact, once when I imprinted on a young lady's lips a chaste and fatherly kiss for about five minutes, I stopped and said, sorrowfully, "Wouldn't you rather be kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy?" She frowned and said, "Of course not. If you'd ever been kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy you'd know better than to ask." Remember that. In any direct competition, the old man is bound to win and the young man knows it.

centuries would yet pass before the mighty works of fifty generations of humans would decay past use. Only the declining powers of men, themselves, rendered them useless now.

Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer.

During the century after Newton , it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.

A nuclear blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.

Dors muttered to him, "Stop studying humanity. Be aware of your surroundings." "I'll try.

The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again. Hari

From the radiating point of Siwenna, the forces of the Empire reached out cautiously into the black unknown of the Periphery. Giant ships passed the vast distances that separated the vagrant stars at the Galaxy's rim, and felt their way around the outermost edge of Foundation influence.

They work off all their resentments, enjoy all the smug self-satisfaction a young revolutionary would have, and by the time they take their place in the Imperial hierarchy, they are ready to settle down into conformity and obedience.

El hombre más irreversiblemente estúpido es aquel que ignora su sabiduría.

Toda humanidade pode compartilhar a mesma insanidade e estar imersa em uma ilusão comum enquanto vive em um caos comum.

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.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works

Since I do not believe in so many things, it is not difficult for me to disbelieve in the Fall as well, so that I am entirely convinced I will be telling the truth to the people.

Concerning the blindness and bigotry of people, the pleasures of hatred rise superior even to the instinct of self-preservation.

la característica de una clase privilegiada es siempre la misma: la posesión del ocio, como única gran recompensa de su condición.

Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly complete mental discruption results. Mild cases - hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced cases - madness and suicide.

You are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can.

A simple aspect of science may be defined as one which, through good fortune, I happen to understand.

She's qualified all right. She understands robots like a sister—comes from hating human beings so much, I think.

Yet weren't all human beings simply human beings no matter what name you applied to them[?]

Riose laughed suddenly. He foresaw that? Then he foresaw wrong, my good scientist. I suppose you call yourself that. Why, the Empire is more powerful now than it has been in a millennium. Your old eyes are blinded by the cold bleakness of the border. Come to the inner worlds some day; come to the warmth and the wealth of the center.

A really good story does not answer everything. After all, life doesn't answer everything. There remain ambiguities. There remains room for doubt.