The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.

He is one of my favorite people, and I have read almost everything he has written. He has had many quotes of intelligence and wisdom, some of which are as follows:        

“A fire-eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer should be replaced by a computer.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you-and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict---its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself---what's the expression---ah, yes, 'not with a bang, but a whimper,' as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing-to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics-Well, they can do whatever they wish.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“If a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“In a properly automated and educated world, then, machines may prove to be the true humanizing influence. It may be that machines will do the work that makes life possible and that human beings will do all the other things that make life pleasant and worthwhile”
 - Isaac Asimov

“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Isn't it sad that you can tell people that the ozone layer is being depleted, the forests are being cut down, the deserts are advancing steadily, that the greenhouse effect will raise the sea level 200 feet, that overpopulation is choking us, that pollution is killing us, that nuclear war may destroy us - and they yawn and settle back for a comfortable nap. But tell them that the Martians are landing, and they scream and run.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people. . . . If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to UNlearn.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise-even in their own field.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Life would be impossible on such a planet. It wouldn't get enough heat and light, and if it rotated there would be total darkness half of every day. There wouldn't be any native inhabitants. You couldn't expect life---which is fundamentally dependent on light---to develop under such extreme conditions of light deprivation. Half of every axial rotation spent in Darkness! No, nothing could exist under conditions like that.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn't worth discussing.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Naturally, there's got to be a limit for I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“No one suggests that writing about science will turn the entire world into a model of judgment and creative thought. It will be enough if they spread the knowledge as widely as possible.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?"“
 - Isaac Asimov

“People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“People think of education as something they can finish.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Scientific apparatus offers a window to knowledge, but as they grow more elaborate, scientists spend ever more time washing the windows.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Surely no child, and few adults, have ever watched a bird in flight without envy.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The energy requirements for interstellar travel are so great that it is inconceivable to me that any creatures piloting their ships across the vast depths of space would do so only in order to play games with us over a period of decades. If they want to make contact, they would make contact; if not, they would save their energy and go elsewhere.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The first law of dietetics seems to be: if it tastes good, it's bad for you.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The human brain, then, is the most complicated organization of matter that we know.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday’s love is part of today’s and the confidence in tomorrow’s love is also part of today’s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die - I almost believe, rationalist though I am - that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The Three Laws of Robotics: 1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law; The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?”
 - Isaac Asimov

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

“To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“What lasts in the reader's mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“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.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“While he lives, he must think; while he thinks, he must dream.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“You just can't differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.”
 - Isaac Asimov

“You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.”
 - Isaac Asimov