Quotes from Isaac Asimov

There was so much more in the past, so much less in the future, that the mind turned away from the looming shadow ahead to contemplate the safety of what had gone before.

His honor, rests in the very actions that led to his conviction and death. It is beyond your power to add to or detract from it.

All that had been done in the mid-twentieth century on "calculating machines" had been upset by Robertson and his positronic brain-paths. The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of plantinumiridium about the size of a human brain. She

frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a world she disliked by a mask-like expression and a hypertrophy of intellect.

the case of Askone twenty years ago. First they were sold some of your goods and then your people asked for complete freedom of missionary effort in order that the goods might be run properly; that Temples of Health be set up. There was then the establishment of religious schools; autonomous rights for all officers of the religion and with what result? Askone is now an integral member of the Foundation's system and the Grand Master cannot call his underwear his own.

but all life is a symphony of successive losses. You lose your youth, your parents, your loves, your friends, your comforts, your health, and finally your life. To deny loss is to lose it all anyway and to lose, in addition, your self-possession and your peace of mind

Finge went on. "There are some things, however, they must not know. Prime among them, of course, is the manner in which we alter Reality when necessary. The insecurity such knowledge would arouse would be most harmful. It is always necessary to breed out of Reality any factors that might lead to such knowledge and we have never been troubled with it.

Better your own road to hell than another's road to heaven

Antes de intentar una cura debemos averiguar en qué consiste la enfermedad.

Century or another. Usually, the dangerous beliefs are those which concentrate particularly in the ruling classes of an era; the classes that have most contact with us and, at the same time, carry the important weight of what is called public opinion." Finge paused as though he expected Harlan to offer some comment or ask some question. Harlan did neither. Finge continued. "Ever since the Reality Change 433–486, Serial Number

If you have the courage to ask the question, you should have the courage to ask it openly.

I'm a man of business. If it adds up to a plus mark, I'm for it.

Essentially they were those who had not adapted themselves to what had once been called the Atomic Age, in the days when atoms were a novelty. Actually, they were the Simple-Lifers, hungering after a life, which to those who had lived it had probably appeared not so Simple, and who had been, therefore, Simple-Lifers themselves.

Being helpless is one of the things that isn't altogether amusing. - Gilbert

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.

Now a human caught in an impossibility often responds by a retreat from reality: by entry into a world of delusion, or by taking to drink, going of into hysteria, or jumping off a bridge. It all comes to the same thing-a refusal or inability to face the situation squarely.

Perhaps! Your opinions are yours, of course. Still you are rather young." Dryly. "It is a fault that most people are guilty of at some period of their life. You became mayor of the city when you were two years younger than I am now.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Nunca permitas que el sentido de la moral te impida hacer lo que está bien!

When one begins by expressing lack of competence in a given field, it usually implies that a flat opinion in that field will follow almost immediately

The young man is handsome, pleasant, and extremely charming. Don't let him fool you.

We of Solaria alone learned how life was to be lived. We did not herd and flock like animals, as they did on Earth, as they did on other worlds, as they did even on the other Spacer worlds. We lived each alone, with robots to help us, viewing each other electronically as often as we wished, but coming within natural sight of one another only rarely.

frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal "honor" and court etiquette.

Well, there is one—a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man whom they call the Mule." "The Mule?" She considered. "Ever hear of him, Torie?