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In My Life There Have Been Several Individuals Whose Presence Made It Easier For Me To Think, Pleasanter To Make My Responses.
-Isaac Asimov
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In My Life There

Isaac Asimov
...
In My Life There Have Been Several Individuals Whose Presence Made It Easier For Me To Think, Pleasanter To Make My Responses.

Understanding the Quote: "in my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it..."

This quote by Isaac Asimov reflects deeply on the theme of thinking. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Thinking, Individual, Easier, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Isaac Asimov interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is celebrated for insightful thoughts on thinking and individual. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Thinking
Individual
Easier
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Oh, For A Pin That Would Puncture Pretension!
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And [asimov]'ll Sign Anything, Hardbacks, Softbacks, Other People's Books, Scraps Of Paper. Inevitably Someone Handed Him A Blank Check On The Occasion When I Was There, And He Signed That Without As Much As A Waver To His Smile — Except That He Signed: 'harlan Ellison.
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If A Conclusion Is Not Poetically Balanced, It Cannot Be Scientifically True.
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The Final End Of Eternity, And The Beginning Of Infinity
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Groups
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Way
Denial
Problem
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Weapons
Way
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Ignorance
Knowing
Deep Life
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Inspirational
Life
Science
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Grateful
Thinking
Humanity
Now Any Dogma, Based Primarily On Faith And Emotionalism, Is A Dangerous Weapon To Use On Others, Since It Is Almost Impossible To Guarantee That The Weapon Will Never Be Turned On The User.
Faith
Emotional
Guarantees That
[o]ur Statesmen, Our Businessmen, Our Everyman Must Take On A Science Fictional Way Of Thinking.
Thinking
Inevitable Change
Way
The World In General Disapproves Of Creativity, And To Be Creative In Public Is Particularly Bad. Even To Speculate In Public Is Rather Worrisome.
Creativity
Creative
World
The History Of Science Is Full Of Revolutionary Advances That Required Small Insights That Anyone Might Have Had, But That, In Fact, Only One Person Did.
Might
Facts
Revolutionary
I Am An Atheist, Out And Out. It Took Me A Long Time To Say It.
Atheist
Long
Atheism
The Dangers That Face The World Can, Every One Of Them, Be Traced Back To Science. The Salvations That May Save The World Will, Every One Of Them, Be Traced Back To Science.
Science
World
May
... You Just Can't Differentiate Between A Robot And The Very Best Of Humans.
Robots
Humans
Differentiate
In The Presence Of Total Darkness, The Mind Finds It Absolutely Necessary To Create Light.
Light
Darkness
Mind
I Do Not Fear Computers. I Fear The Lack Of Them.
Inspiring
Fear
Humorous
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."
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Ignorance
Knowledge
Now Remember, Kids, The Internet Is Serious Business.
Kids
Serious Business
Remember
All Life Is Nucleic Acid; The Rest Is Commentary.
Acid
Life Is
Commentary
On Earth, We Are Unmanned By Our Longing For A Pastoral Past That Never Really Existed; And That, If It Had Existed, Could Never Exist Again...on The Moon, There Is No Past To Long For Or Dream About. There Is No Direction But Forward.
Dream
Past
Moon
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Scientist
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Differences
The True Artist Is Quite Rational As Well As Imaginative And Knows What He Is Doing; If He Does Not, His Art Suffers.
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Suffering
Doe
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.
Teacher
Congratulations
Writing
Of Course There Are Worlds. Millions Of Them! Every Star You See Has Worlds, And Most Of Those You Don't See.
Stars
World
Courses
Tens Of Millions Of Americans Who Neither Know Or Understand The Actual Arguments For, Or Even Against, Evolution, March In The Army Of The Night With Their Bibles Held High
Army
Night
Evolution
If We Only Obey Those Rules That We Think Are Just And Reasonable, Then No Rule Will Stand, For There Is No Rule That Some Will Not Think Is Unjust And Unreasonable.
Thinking
Unjust
Unreasonable
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.
Lonely
Men
Mind
I Was Once Being Interviewed By Barbara Walters. In Between Two Of The Segments She Asked Me: "but What Would You Do If The Doctor Gave You Only Six Months To Live?" I Said, "type Faster." This Was Widely Quoted, But The "six Months" Was Changed To "six Minutes," Which Bothered Me. It's "six Months."
Doctors
Two
Six Months
Any Planet Is 'earth' To Those That Live On It.
Earth
Planets
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.
Creative
Lucky
Machines
Old Men Tend To Forget What Thought Was Like In Their Youth; They Forget The Quickness Of The Mental Jump, The Daring Of The Youthful Intuition, The Agility Of The Fresh Insight. They Become Accustomed To The More Plodding Varieties Of Reason, And Because This Is More Than Made Up By The Accumulation Of Experience, Old Men Think Themselves Wiser Than The Young.
Men
Thinking
Intuition
Although We Will Hate And Fight The Machines, We Will Be Supplanted Anyway, And Rightly So, For The Intelligent Machines To Which We Will Give Birth May, Better Than We, Carry On The Striving Toward The Goal Of Understanding And Using The Universe, Climbing To Heights We Ourselves Could Never Aspire To.
Hate
Fighting
Intelligent
Thinking Is The Activity I Love Best, And Writing To Me Is Simply Thinking Through My Fingers. I Can Write Up To 18 Hours A Day. Typing 90 Words A Minute, I've Done Better Than 50 Pages A Day. Nothing Interferes With My Concentration. You Could Put An Orgy In My Office And I Wouldn't Look Up-well, Maybe Once.
Writing
Science
Love Is
It's The Writing That Teaches You.
Writing
Teach
I Figure That If God Actually Does Exist, He Is Big Enough To Understand An Honest Difference Of Opinion.
Differences
Doe
Opinion
Dreams May Be Impossible, Yet Still Be Dreamed.
Dream
May
Impossible
When I Feel Difficulty Coming On, I Switch To Another Book I'm Writing. When I Get Back To The Problem, My Unconscious Has Solved It.
Book
Writing
Problem
I Don't Believe In Personal Immortality; The Only Way I Expect To Have Some Version Of Such A Thing Is Through My Books.
Believe
Book
Way
We Mythologists Know Very Well That Myths And Legends Contain Borrowings, Moral Lessons, Nature Cycles, And A Hundred Other Distorting Influences, And We Labor To Cut Them Away And Get To What Might Be A Kernel Of Truth. In Fact, These Same Techniques Must Be Applied To The Most Sober Histories, For No One Writes The Clear And Apparent Truth-if Such A Thing Can Even Be Said To Exist.
Writing
Cutting
Lessons
Speech, Originally, Was The Device Whereby Man Learned, Imperfectly, To Transmit The Thoughts And Emotions Of His Mind. By Setting Up Arbitrary Sounds And Combinations Of Sounds To Represent Certain Mental Nuances, He Developed A Method Of Communication--but One Which In Its Clumsiness And Thick-thumbed Inadequacy Degenerated All The Delicacy Of The Mind Into Gross And Guttural Signaling.
Communication
Men
Mind
The Essential Building Block Is...the True Love That Is Impossible To Define For Those Who Have Never Experienced It And Unnecessary To Define For Those Who Have.
Block
Essentials
Impossible
While He Lives, He Must Think; While He Thinks, He Must Dream.
Dream
Thinking
However Much The Creationist Leaders Might Hammer Away At Their Scientific And Philosophical Points, They Would Be Helpless And A Laughing-stock If That Were All They Had. It Is Religion That Recruits Their Squadrons. Tens Of Millions Of Americans, Who Neither Know Nor Understand The Actual Arguments For - Of Even Against - Evolution, March In The Army Of The Night, Their Bibles Held High. And They Are A Strong And Frightening Force, Impervious To, And Immunized Against, The Feeble Lance Of Mere Reason.
Strong
Philosophical
Army
The Greatest Inventors Are Unknown To Us. Someone Invented The Wheel - But Who?
Wheels
Inventor
I Wanted To Be A Psychological Engineer, But We Lacked The Facilities, So I Did The Next Best Thing - I Went Into Politics. It's Practically The Same Thing.
Next
Psychological
Wanted
So, Then, What Is Style? There Are Two Chief Aspects Of Any Piece Of Writing: 1) What You Say And 2) How You Say It. The Former Is "content" And The Latter Is "style."
Writing
Two
Style
I Made Up My Mind Long Ago To Follow One Cardinal Rule In All My Writing — To Be Clear.
Writing
Long Ago
Mind
As Artists And Traders In Medieval Cities Began To Form Organizations, They Instituted Tough Initiation Ceremonies. Journeymen In Bergen, Norway, Were Shoved Down A Chimney, Thrown Three Times Into The Sea, And Soundly Whipped. Such Rites Made Belonging To The Guild Or Corporation More Precious To Those Who Were Accepted, And Survived.
Artist
Sea
Cities
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.
Knowledge
Science
Men
Although The Time Of Death Is Approaching Me, I Am Not Afraid Of Dying And Going To Hell Or (what Would Be Considerably Worse) Going To The Popularized Version Of Heaven. I Expect Death To Be Nothingness And, For Removing Me From All Possible Fears Of Death, I Am Thankful To Atheism.
Death
Suicide
Atheist
However, I Continue To Try And I Continue, Indefatigably, To Reach Out. There's No Way I Can Single-handedly Save The World Or, Perhaps, Even Make A Perceptible Difference - But How Ashamed I Would Be To Let A Day Pass Without Making One More Effort.
Differences
Effort
Trying
Fifty Years," I Hackneyed, "is A Long Time." "not When You're Looking Back At Them," She Said. "you Wonder How They Vanished So Quickly.
Years
Long
Fifty
Anything You Make Forbidden Gains Sexual Attractiveness. Would You Be Particularly Interested In Women's Breasts If You Lived In A Society In Which They Were Displayed At All Times?
Gains
Forbidden
All Time
There Is No Belief, However Foolish, That Will Not Gather Its Faithful Adherents Who Will Defend It To The Death.
Death
Faith
Science
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. This, In Turn, Means That Our Statesmen, Our Businessmen, Our Every Man Must Take On A Science Fictional Way Of Thinking.
Change
Business
Mean
Only A Lie That Wasn't Ashamed Of Itself Could Possibly Succeed.
Lying
Succeed
Ashamed
It Is Almost Impossible To Think Of Something No One Has Thought Of Before, But It Is Always Possible To Add Different Frills.
Thinking
Different
Add
We Are All Victimized By The Natural Perversity Of Inanimate Objects...and The Assorted Human Beings Who Perpetuate And Maintain This Perversity.
Inanimate Objects
Natural
Assorted
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.
Jobs
Laughter
Pain
No One Can Possibly Have Lived Through The Great Depression Without Being Scarred By It. No Amount Of Experience Since The Depression Can Convince Someone Who Has Lived Through It That The World Is Safe Economically.
World
Safe
Great Depression
And It Came To Pass That Ac Learned How To Reverse The Direction Of Entropy. But There Was Now No Man To Whom Ac Might Give The Answer Of The Last Question. No Matter. The Answer - By Demonstration - Would Take Care Of That, Too. For Another Timeless Interval, Ac Thought How Best To Do This. Carefully, Ac Organized The Program. The Consciousness Of Ac Encompassed All Of What Had Been A Universe And Brooded Over What Was Now Chaos. Step By Step, It Must Be Done. And Ac Said, "let There Be Light!" And There Was Light...
Men
Light
Giving
One Thought That Occurs To Me Is That Men Will Continue To Withdraw From Nature In Order To Create An Environment That Will Suit Them Better.
Men
Order
Suits
When I Sit Down At The Typewriter, I Write. Someone Once Asked Me If I Had A Fixed Routine Before I Start, Like Setting Up Exercises, Sharpening Pencils, Or Having A Drink Of Orange Juice. I Said, "no, The Only Thing I Do Before I Start Writing Is To Make Sure That I'm Close Enough To The Typewriter To Reach The Keys."
Writing
Exercise
Typewriters
Intelligence Is An Extremely Subtle Concept. It's A Kind Of Understanding That Flourishes If It's Combined With A Good Memory, But Exists Anyway Even In The Absence Of Good Memory. It's The Ability To Draw Consequences From Causes, To Make Correct Inferences, To Foresee What Might Be The Result, To Work Out Logical Problems, To Be Reasonable, Rational, To Have The Ability To Understand The Solution From Perhaps Insufficient Information. You Know When A Person Is Intelligent, But You Can Be Easily Fooled If You Are Not Yourself Intelligent.
Memories
Science
Intelligent
Democracy Cannot Survive Overpopulation. Human Dignity Cannot Survive It. Convenience And Decency Cannot Survive It. As You Put More And More People Into The World, The Value Of Life Not Only Declines, But It Disappears. It Doesn't Matter If Someone Dies.
People
Democracy
Population
Night Will Always Be A Time Of Fear And Insecurity, And The Heart Will Sink With The Sun.
Heart
Night
Insecurity
The Whole Business Is The Crudest Sort Of Stratagem, Since We Have No Way Of Foreseeing It To The End. It Is A Mere Paying Out Of Rope On The Chance That Somewhere Along The Length Of It Will Be A Noose.
Way
Rope
Chance
Fertility Is Hereditary. If Your Parents Didn't Have Any Children, Neither Will You. I Do Not Fear Computers. I Fear The Lack Of Them.
Children
Parent
Fertility
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.
War
Expression
Bangs
There Was This Superstitious Fear On The Part Of The Pygmies Of The Present For The Relics Of The Giants Of The Past.
Past
Giants
Relics
I Wish That I Could Say I Was Optimistic About The Human Race. I Love Us All, But We Are So Stupid And Shortsighted That I Wonder If We Can Lift Our Eyes To The World About Us Long Enough Not To Commit Suicide.
Suicide
Stupid
Eye
Nothing Has To Be True, But Everything Has To Sound True.
Sound
Being True
To All My Gentle Readers Who Have Treated Me With Love For Over 30 Years, I Must Say Farewell. It Has Always Been My Ambition To Die In Harness With My Head Face Down On A Keyboard And My Nose Caught Between Two Of The Keys, But That's Not The Way It Worked Out. I Have Had A Long And Happy Life And I Have No Complaints About The Ending, Thereof, And So Farewell - Farewell.
Farewell
Ambition
Happy Life
Science Is Uncertain. Theories Are Subject To Revision; Observations Are Open To A Variety Of Interpretations, And Scientists Quarrel Amongst Themselves. This Is Disillusioning For Those Untrained In The Scientific Method, Who Thus Turn To The Rigid Certainty Of The Bible Instead. There Is Something Comfortable About A View That Allows For No Deviation And That Spares You The Painful Necessity Of Having To Think.
Science
Thinking
Views
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.
Motivational
Future
Continuing On
Never Let Your Sense Of Morals Get In The Way Of Doing What's Right.
Love
Inspirational
Funny
When Life Is So Harsh That A Man Loses All Hope In Himself, Then He Raises His Eyes To A Shining Rock, Worshipping It, Just To Find Hope Again, Rather Than Looking To His Own Acts For Hope And Salvation. Yes, Atheism Is A Redemptive Belief. It Is Theism That Denies Man's Own Redemptive Nature.
Eye
Men
Rocks
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.
Cheer
Pregnancy
Technology
What I Will Be Remembered For Are The Foundation Trilogy And The Three Laws Of Robotics. What I Want To Be Remembered For Is No One Book, Or No Dozen Books. Any Single Thing I Have Written Can Be Paralleled Or Even Surpassed By Something Someone Else Has Done. However, My Total Corpus For Quantity, Quality And Variety Can Be Duplicated By No One Else. That Is What I Want To Be Remembered For.
Book
Writing
Law
The Fundamentalists Deny That Evolution Has Taken Place; They Deny That The Earth And The Universe As A Whole Are More Than A Few Thousand Years Old, And So On. There Is Ample Scientific Evidence That The Fundamentalists Are Wrong In These Matters, And That Their Notions Of Cosmogony Have About As Much Basis In Fact As The Tooth Fairy Has.
Taken
Years
Matter
Despite All That Education And Experience Can Do, I Retain A Certain Level Of Unsophistication That I Cannot Eradicate And That My Friends Find Amusing. In Fact, I Think I Sometimes Detect Conspiratorial Plottings Among My Friends To Protect Me Against My Own Lack Of Sophistication. I Don't Mind. I Suspect That I Am Never Quite As Unsophisticated As They Think I Am, But I Don't Mind.
Thinking
Mind
Facts
To Introduce Something Altogether New Would Mean To Begin All Over, To Become Ignorant Again, And To Run The Old, Old Risk Of Failing To Learn.
Running
Ignorance
Mean
Feminine Intuition? Is That What You Wanted The Robot For? You Men. Faced With A Woman Reaching A Correct Conclusion And Unable To Accept The Fact That She Is Your Equal Or Superior In Intelligence, You Invent Something Called Feminine Intuition.
Men
Intuition
Robots
The Facts, Gentlemen, And Nothing But The Facts, For Careful Eyes Are Narrowly Watching.
Eye
Science
Gentleman
I Expect Death To Be Nothingness And, For Removing Me From All Possible Fears Of Death, I Am Thankful To Atheism.
Atheist
Religion
Atheism
The Whole World Might Know You And Acclaim You, But Someone In The Past, Forever Unreachable, Forever Unknowing, Spoils It All.
Past
Forever
World
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.
Writing
Essence
Fiction Stories
Every Human Being Lived Behind An Impenetrable Wall Of Choking Mist Within Which No Other But He Existed. Occasionally There Were The Dim Signals From Deep Within The Cavern In Which Another Man Was Located So That Each Might Grope Toward The Other. Yet Because They Did Not Know One Another, And Could Not Understand One Another, And Dared Not Trust One Another, And Felt From Infancy The Terrors And Insecurity Of That Ultimate Isolation There Was The Hunted Fear Of Man For Man, The Savage Rapacity Of Man Toward Man.
Wall
Men
Insecurity
Scientists Derive Satisfaction From Figuring Out The Puzzle. It's About The Quest, Not The Grail.
Quests
Satisfaction
Scientist
They Won't Listen. Do You Know Why? Because They Have Certain Fixed Notions About The Past. Any Change Would Be Blasphemy In Their Eyes, Even If It Were The Truth. They Don't Want The Truth; They Want Their Traditions.
Eye
Past
Would Be
The Further A Device Is Removed From Human Control, The More Authentically Mechanical It Seems, And The Whole Trend In Technology Has Been To Devise Machines That Are Less And Less Under Direct Human Control And More And More Under Their Own Apparent Will.
Technology
Hands
Independence
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