Isaac Asimov

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.

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.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

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.

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

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 has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

It is not only the living who are killed in war.

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.

I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.

To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. 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.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.