Quotes from Isaac Asimov

All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos.

Inevitably, he said, What is the meaning of this? It is the precise question and precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect.

it may be worth listening to all that scraping, tootling, and banging, for whatever information it might conceivably yield concerning Earth.

Heartbreak, as I judge from my limited experience, is the pain one feels at the loss of a love object, in the case where the love object, not returning the love, breaks off (whether kindly or cruelly) and disappears. The person you love is gone, but still exists, and is simply not available, This is a rather benign situation as compared with the irrevocable loss through death of someone you love, but it is, nevertheless, painful. For

A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call form a young woman who inquired as to how she might obtain a copy of In Memory Yet Green (the first volume of my autobiography)... There seemed no point in suggesting that she haunt the second bookstores because no one but an idiot ever abandons one of my books after it has come in his possession, and there are few idiots who know enough to buy one of my books in the first place.

Se você tivesse nascido numa cela e crescido num corredor, trabalhando num cubículo, com férias numa varanda repleta de gente, ao sair para o ar livre, sem nada além do céu sobre si, talvez lhe desse um ataque de nervos.

Los anuncios! Un procedimiento para atraer a los desinteresados. ¿Qué le importaba a un fabricante de vehículos terrestres si el deseo de un individuo desconocido hacia su producto era espontáneo o provocado? Si el cliente —esa era la palabra— podía ser artificialmente convencido o sugestionado para sentir tal deseo y actuar en consecuencia, ¿no era eso todo lo que le importaba al fabricante?

even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side.

Any accident involving a robot-driven car would set off another antirobot riot.

Finished products are for decadent minds.

Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one. (Lupov)

There is probability of 1.7% that I will be executed, but of course that will not stop the project. We have taken that into account as well.

What then, I thought to myself, madam, if I were utterly without Laws, as humans are? What if I could make no clear decision on what response to make to some given set of conditions? It would be unbearable and I do not willingly think of it.

podemos afirmar que hacia 350 a.C. ningún científico dudaba ya de que la Tierra fuese una esfera. Desde entonces, este concepto ha sido admitido en todo momento por cualquier hombre culto del mundo occidental.

Sólo hay una guerra que puede permitirse el ser humano: la guerra contra su extinción

Devers' eyes were dark with thought. 'You want the Empire to win?' And the old Siwennian patrician broke out in sudden deep anger. 'May the Empire and all its works perish in universal catastrophe. All Siwenna prays that daily. I had brothers once, a sister, a father. But I have children now, grandchildren. The general knows where to find them.

el hombre ha tratado siempre de rehuir el concepto de infinitud, ya sea del espacio o del tiempo, como algo imposible de concebir y entender, y por ende, como un concepto con el que no es fácil trabajar ni razonar.

It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all. (Lupov)

La palabra «libertad» no tiene sentido cuando se aplica a un robot. Sólo un ser humano puede ser libre.

If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

The stars are dying. The original star is dead. (Zee Prime)

The eyes of the Emperor are everywhere,' said Brodrig, mechanically. 'We do not underestimate the importance of the campaign; yet still it would seem that too great an emphasis is being placed upon its difficulty. Surely their little ships are no such barrier that we must move through the intricate preliminary manoeuvre of an Inclosure.

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

Trantor was a world in dregs and rebirth. Set like a faded jewel in the midst of the bewildering crowd of suns at the center of the Galaxy—in the heaps and clusters of stars piled high with aimless prodigality—it alternately dreamed of past and future.