Background Image

...

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.

-Isaac Asimov

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Is Change, Continuing

Isaac Asimov

...

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.

Views: 46099

Topic

More From Isaac Asimov

A Good Question Is, Of Course, The Key By Which Infinite Answers Can Be Educed.

Science Does Not Promise Absolute Truth, Nor Does It Consider That Such A Thing Necessarily Exists. Science Does Not Even Promise That Everything In The Universe Is Amenable To The Scientific Process.

The World Is Being Americanized And Technologized To Its Limits, And That Makes It Dull For Some People. Reaching The Moon Restores The Frontier And Gives Us The Lands Beyond.

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."

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.

We're Forever Teetering On The Brink Of The Unknowable, And Trying To Understand What Can't Be Understood.

The True Delight Is In The Finding Out Rather Than In The Knowing.

If There Is A Category Of Human Being For Whom His Work Ought To Speak For Itself, It Is The Writer.

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.

The Easiest Way To Solve A Problem Is To Deny It Exists.

Until Now In World's History, Whenever We've Had A Dark Age, Its Been Temporary And Local. And Other Parts Of The World Have Been Doing Fine. And Eventually, They Help You Get Out Of The Dark Age. We Are Now Facing A Possible Dark Age Which Is Going To Be World-wide And Permanent! That's Not Fun. That's A Different Thing. But Once We Have Established Many Worlds, We Can Do Whatever We Want As Long As We Do It One World At A Time.

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."

All You Have To Do Is Take A Close Look At Yourself And You Will Understand Everyone Else.

Look At Yourself

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.

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?

It Was Obvious That Bigotry Was Never A One-way Operation, That Hatred Bred Hatred!

The Fall Of Empire, Gentlemen, Is A Massive Thing, However, And Not Easily Fought. It Is Dictated By A Rising Bureaucracy, A Receding Initiative, A Freezing Of Caste, A Damming Of Curiosity — A Hundred Other Factors. It Has Been Going On, As I Have Said, For Centuries, And It Is Too Majestic And Massive A Movement To Stop.

Naturally, Since [the Sumerians] Didn't Know What Caused The Flood Anymore Than We Do, They Blamed The Gods. (that's The Advantage Of Religion. You're Never Short An Explanation For Anything.)

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.

Great Depression

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. It Is Better To Know - Even If The Knowledge Endures Only For The Moment That Comes Before Destruction - Than To Gain Eternal Life At The Price Of A Dull And Swinish Lack Of Comprehension Of A Universe That Swirls Unseen Before Us In All Its Wonder. That Was The Choice Of Achilles, And It Is Mine, Too.

All Roads Lead To Trantor, Says The Old Proverb, And That Is Where All Stars End.

I Type 90 Words Per Minute On The Typewriter; I Type 100 Words Per Minute On The Word Processor. But, Of Course, I Don't Keep That Up Indefinitely - Every Once In A While I Do Have To Think A Few Seconds.

Korell Is That 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.

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.

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.

It Is Remarkable, Hardin, How The Religion Of Science Has Grabbed Hold.

Arthur Clarke Says That I Am First In Science And Second In Science Fiction In Accordance With An Agreement We Have Made. I Say He Is First In Science Fiction And Second In Science.

Radiation, Unlike Smoking, Drinking, And Overeating, Gives No Pleasure, So The Possible Victims Object.

It Is Almost Impossible To Think Of Something No One Has Thought Of Before, But It Is Always Possible To Add Different Frills.

To Any Who Know The Star Field Well From One Certain Reference Point, Stars Are As Individual As People. Jump Ten Parsecs, However, And Not Even Your Own Sun Is Recognizable.

The Vast Majority, Who Believe In Astrology And Think That The Planets Have Nothing Better To Do Than Form A Code That Will Tell Them Whether Tomorrow Is A Good Day To Close A Business Deal Or Not, Become All The More Excited And Enthusiastic.

Where Is The World Whose People Don't Prefer A Comfortable, Warm, And Well-worn Belief, However Illogical, To The Chilly Winds Of Uncertainty.

Economics Is On The Side Of Humanity Now.

Where Any Answer Is Possible, All Answers Are Meaningless.

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.

Why ... Did So Many People Spend Their Lives Not Trying To Find Answers To Questions -- Not Even Thinking Of Questions To Begin With? Was There Anything More Exciting In Life Than Seeking Answers?

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.

Writing Is A Lonely Job. Even If A Writer Socializes Regularly, When He Gets Down To The Real Business Of His Life, It Is He And His Type Writer Or Word Processor. No One Else Is Or Can Be Involved In The Matter.

A Robot May Not Injure A Human Being, Or, Through Inaction, Allow A Human Being To Come To Harm.

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.

I Don’t Like Anything That’s Got To Be. I Want To Know Why.

Courtiers Don't Take Wagers Against The King's Skill. There Is The Deadly Danger Of Winning.

The Three Theorems Of Psychohistorical Quantitivity: The Population Under Scrutiny Is Oblivious To The Existence Of The Science Of Psychohistory. The Time Periods Dealt With Are In The Region Of 3 Generations. The Population Must Be In The Billions (±75 Billions) For A Statistical Probability To Have A Psychohistorical Validity.

If All Human Beings Understood History, They Might Cease Making The Same Stupid Mistakes Over And Over.

Any Teacher That Can Be Replaced By A Computer Should Be Replaced By A Computer.

When Stupidity Is Considered Patriotism, It Is Unsafe To Be Intelligent.

There Is No Belief, However Foolish, That Will Not Gather Its Faithful Adherents Who Will Defend It To The Death.

Politically Popular Speech Has Always Been Protected: Even The Jews Were Free To Say ‘heil Hitler.’

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.

The Laws Of History Are As Absolute As The Laws Of Physics, And If The Probabilities Of Error Are Greater, It Is Only Because History Does Not Deal With As Many Humans As Physics Does Atoms, So That Individual Variations Count For More.

Human Beings Sometimes Find A Kind Of Pleasure In Nursing Painful Emotions, In Blaming Themselves Without Reason Or Even Against Reason.

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.

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.

To Make Discoveries, You Have To Be Curious About Why The Universe Is The Way It Is.

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

Rejection Slips, Or Form Letters, However Tactfully Phrased, Are Lacerations Of The Soul, If Not Quite Inventions Of The Devil-but There Is No Way Around Them.

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.

It's The Writing That Teaches You.

Plate Glass... Has No Beauty Of Its Own. Ideally, You Ought Not To Be Able To See It At All, But Through It You Can See All That Is Happening Outside. That Is The Equivalent Of Writing That Is Plain And Unadorned. Ideally, In Reading Such Writing, You Are Not Even Aware That You Are Reading. Ideas And Events Seem Merely To Flow From The Mind Of The Writer Into That Of The Reader Without Any Barrier Between. I Hope That Is What Is Happening When You Read This Book

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.

Education Isn't Something You Can Finish

Since Emotions Are Few And Reasons Are Many (said The Robot Giscard) The Behavior Of A Crowd Can Be More Easily Predicted Than The Behavior Of One Person.

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.

The Spell Of Power Never Quite Releases Its Hold.

I Have Never Written A Book That Didn't Teach Me Far More Than It Taught My Reader.

At Two-tenths The Speed Of Light, Dust And Atoms Might Not Do Significant Damage Even In A Voyage Of 40 Years, But The Faster You Go, The Worse It Is--space Begins To Become Abrasive. When You Begin To Approach The Speed Of Light, Hydrogen Atoms Become Cosmic-ray Particles, And They Will Fry The Crew. ...so 60,000 Kilometers Per Second May Be The Practical Speed Limit For Space Travel.

Boasts Are Wind And Deeds Are Hard.

How Many People Is The Earth Able To Sustain?

One Would Suppose That The Battle For Religious Liberty Was Won In The United States Two Hundred Years Ago. However, In The Time Since, And Right Now, Powerful Voices Are Always Raised In Favor Of Bigotry And Thought Control. It Is Useful, Then, To Have A Compendium Of The Thoughts Of Great Men And Women Of All Faiths (and Of None) On The Subject, To Convince Us That We Men And Woman Of Freedom Are Not And Never Have Been Alone.

Inspect Every Piece Of Pseudoscience And You Will Find A Security Blanket.

No Vision Of God And Heaven Ever Experienced By The Most Exalted Prophet Can, In My Opinion, Match The Vision Of The Universe As Seen By Newton Or Einstein

The First Step In Making Rabbit Stew Is Catching The Rabbit.

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.

It Is Precisely Because It Is Fashionable For Americans To Know No Science, Even Though They May Be Well Educated Otherwise, That They So Easily Fall Prey To Nonsense.

You Can Prove Anything You Want By Coldly Logical Reason---if You Pick The Proper Postulates.

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.

It's Not So Much What You Have To Learn If You Accept Weird Theories, It's What You Have To Unlearn.

Aimless Extension Of Knowledge, However, Which Is What I Think You Really Mean By The Term Curiosity, Is Merely Inefficiency. I Am Designed To Avoid Inefficiency.” -r. Daneel Olivaw

To Those Who Are Trained In Science, Creationism Seems A Bad Dream, A Sudden Coming Back To Life Of A Nightmare, A Renewed March Of An Army Of The Night Risen To Challenge Free Thought And Enlightenment.

The World Of A.d. 2014 Will Have Few Routine Jobs That Cannot Be Done Better By Some Machine Than By Any Human Being. Mankind Will Therefore Have Become Largely A Race Of Machine Tenders.

Experimentation Is The Least Arrogant Method Of Gaining Knowledge. The Experimenter Humbly Asks A Question Of Nature.

There's So Much Knowledge To Be Had That Specialists Cling To Their Specialties As A Shield Against Having To Know Anything About Anything Else. They Avoid Being Drowned.

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.

The Master Created Humans First As The Lowest Type, Most Easily Formed. Gradually, He Replaced Them By Robots, The Next Higher Step, And Finally He Created Me, To Take The Place Of The Last Humans.

It Seems To Me, Golan, That The Advance Of Civilization Is Nothing But An Exercise In The Limiting Of Privacy.

Science Can Be Introduced To Children Well Or Poorly. If Poorly, Children Can Be Turned Away From Science; They Can Develop A Lifelong Antipathy; They Will Be In A Far Worse Condition Than If They Had Never Been Introduced To Science At All.

It Is Quite Clear That As Long As The Nations Of The World Spend Most Of Their Energy, Money, And Emotional Strength In Quarreling With Words And Weapons, A True Offensive Against The Common Problems That Threaten Human Survival Is Not Very Likely. A World Government That Can Channel Human Efforts In The Direction Of The Great Solutions Seems Desirable, Even Essential. Naturally, Such A World Government Should Be A Federal One, With Regional And Local Autonomy Safeguarded And With Cultural Diversity Promoted.

World Government

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.

It Took Me Thirty-six Years; And, In Some Fifty Stories, Ranging In Length From Short-shorts To Novels, I Think I Must Have Touched, In One Way Or Another, On Every Aspect Of Computers And Computerization. And (mark This!) I Did It Without Ever Knowing Anything At All About Computers In Any Real Sense. To This Day, I Don't. I Am Totally Inept With Machinery... On My Typewriter I Turn Out Books At The Contemptible Rate Of One A Month

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.

There Seems To Be A Feeling That Anything That Is Natural Is Good. Strychnine Is Natural.

It Is Well-known That The Friend Of A Conqueror Is But The Last Victim.

Working Ten Hour Days Allows You To Fall Behind Twice As Fast As You Could Working Five Hour Days.

The Greatest Inventors Are Unknown To Us. Someone Invented The Wheel - But Who?

When Asked For Advice By Beginners. Know Your Ending, I Say, Or The River Of Your Story May Finally Sink Into The Desert Sands And Never Reach The Sea.

I Write For The Same Reason I Breathe - Because If I Didn't, I Would Die.

I Discovered, To My Amazement, That All Through History There Had Been Resistance ... And Bitter, Exaggerated, Last-stitch Resistance ... To Every Significant Technological Change That Had Taken Place On Earth. Usually The Resistance Came From Those Groups Who Stood To Lose Influence, Status, Money...as A Result Of The Change. Although They Never Advanced This As Their Reason For Resisting It. It Was Always The Good Of Humanity That Rested Upon Their Hearts.

Technological Change

Nonsense! The Most Hopelessly Stupid Man Is He Who Is Not Aware That He Is Wise.

A Subtle Thought That Is In Error May Yet Give Rise To Fruitful Inquiry That Can Establish Truths Of Great Value.

You Don't Need To Predict The Future. Just Choose A Future -- A Good Future, A Useful Future -- And Make The Kind Of Prediction That Will Alter Human Emotions And Reactions In Such A Way That The Future You Predicted Will Be Brought About. Better To Make A Good Future Than Predict A Bad One.

To Surrender To Ignorance And Call It God Has Always Been Premature, And It Remains Premature Today.

The Iranians Are Moslems And The Iraqi Are Moslems. Both Are Certain That There Is No God But Allah And That Mohammed Is His Prophet And Believe It With All Their Hearts. And Yet, At The Moment, Iraq Doesn't Trust Iran Worth A Damn, And Iran Trusts Iraq Even Less Than That. In Fact, Iran Is Convinced That Iraq Is In The Pay Of The Great Satan (that's God-fearing America, In Case You've Forgotten) And Iraq Counters With The Accusation That It Is Iran Who Is In The Pay Of The Great Satan. Neither Side Is Accusing The Godless Soviets Of Anything, Which Is A Puzzle

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.

Creationists Make It Sound As Though A 'theory' Is Something You Dreamt Up After Being Drunk All Night.

An Atom-blaster Is A Good Weapon, But It Can Point Both Ways.

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.

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.

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.

Humanity Is Cutting Down Its Forests, Apparently Oblivious To The Fact That We May Not Be Able To Live Without Them.

How Then To Enforce Peace? Not By Reason, Certainly, Nor By Education. If A Man Could Not Look At The Fact Of Peace And The Fact Of War And Choose The Former In Preference To The Latter, What Additional Argument Could Persuade Him? What Could Be More Eloquent As A Condemnation Of War Than War Itself? What Tremendous Feat Of Dialectic Could Carry With It A Tenth The Power Of A Single Gutted Ship With Its Ghastly Cargo?

... You Just Can't Differentiate Between A Robot And The Very Best Of Humans.

It Is In Meeting The Great Tests That Mankind Can Most Successfully Rise To Great Heights. Out Of Danger And Restless Insecurity Comes The Force That Pushes Mankind To Newer And Loftier Conquests.

I Am Not A Speed Reader. I Am A Speed Understander.

One Of Walt Whitman's Best-known Poems Is This One: When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer,.... The Trouble Is, Whitman Is Talking Through His Hat, But The Poor Soul Didn't Know Any Better

After Years Of Finding Mathematics Easy, I Finally Reached Integral Calculus And Came Up Against A Barrier. I Realized That This Was As Far As I Could Go, And To This Day I Have Never Successfully Gone Beyond It In Any But The Most Superficial Way.

A Myth Or Legend Is Simply Not Made Up Out Of A Vacuum. Nothing Is--or Can Be. Somehow There Is A Kernel Of Truth Behind It, However Distorted That Might Be.

The Tyranni Rule Fifty Worlds; They Are Outnumbered Hundreds To One. In Such A Position, Simple Force Is Insufficient. Devious Methods, Intrigue, Assassination Are Their Specialties. The Net They Weave Across Space Is A Wide One, And Close-meshed. I Can Well Believe That It Extends Across Five Hundred Light-years To Earth.

To Me It Seems To Be Important To Believe People To Be Good Even If They Tend To Be Bad, Because Your Own Joy And Happiness In Life Is Increased That Way, And The Pleasures Of The Belief Outweigh The Occasional Disappointments. To Be A Cynic About People Works Just The Other Way Around And Makes You Incapable About Enjoying The Good Things.

I Stand Four-square For Reason, And Object To What Seems To Me To Be Irrationality, Whatever The Source. If You Are On My Side In This, I Must Warn You That The Army Of The Night Has The Advantage Of Overwhelming Numbers, And, By Its Very Nature, Is Immune To Reason, So That It Is Entirely Unlikely That You And I Can Win Out. We Will Always Remain A Tiny And Probably Hopeless Minority, But Let Us Never Tire Of Presenting Our View, And Of Fighting The Good Fight For The Right.

Before Another Century Is Done It Will Be Hard For People To Imagine A Time When Humanity Was Confined To One World, And It Will Seem To Them Incredible That There Was Ever Anybody Who Doubted The Value Of Space And Wanted To Turn His Or Her Back On The Universe.

The Advance Of Genetic Engineering Makes It Quite Conceivable That We Will Begin To Design Our Own Evolutionary Progress.

Writing Is My Only Interest. Even Speaking Is An Interruption.

There Is Nothing Frightening About An Eternal Dreamless Sleep. Surely It Is Better Than Eternal Torment In Hell And Eternal Boredom In Heaven.

It’s A Poor Atom Blaster That Won’t Point Both Ways.

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.

It's Humbling To Think That All Animals, Including Human Beings, Are Parasites Of The Plant World.

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

Scientists Derive Satisfaction From Figuring Out The Puzzle. It's About The Quest, Not The Grail.

You Wait For The War To Happen Like Vultures. If You Want To Help, Prevent The War. Don't Save The Remnants. Save Them All.

Self-education Is, I Firmly Believe, The Only Kind Of Education There Is.

People Think Of Education As Something That They Can Finish.

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.

All Humanity Could Share A Common Insanity And Be Immersed In A Common Illusion While Living In A Common Chaos. That Can't Be Disproved, But We Have No Choice But To Follow Our Senses.

I Prefer Rationalism To Atheism. The Question Of God And Other Objects-of-faith Are Outside Reason And Play No Part In Rationalism, Thus You Don't Have To Waste Your Time In Either Attacking Or Defending.

This Idea [standardized Time Zones] Was First Advanced And Fought For By Sandford Fleming Of Canada And Charles F. Dowd Of The United States. I Mention Them Chiefly Because Like So Many Benefactors Of Mankind They Have Been Rewarded By Total Obscurity.

The Human Mind Works At Low Efficiency. Twenty Percent Is The Figure Usually Given. When, Momentarily, There Is A Flash Of Greater Power, It Is Termed A Hunch, Or Insight, Or Intuition.

All Life Is Nucleic Acid; The Rest Is Commentary.

Tell Me Why The Stars Do Shine, Tell Me Why The Ivy Twines, Tell Me What Makes Skies So Blue, And I'll Tell You Why I Love You. Nuclear Fusion Makes Stars To Shine, Tropisms Make The Ivy Twine, Raleigh Scattering Make Skies So Blue, Testicular Hormones Are Why I Love You.

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.

It Pays To Be Obvious, Especially If You Have A Reputation For Subtlety.

If My Doctor Told Me I Had Only Six Minutes To Live, I Wouldn't Brood. I'd Type A Little Faster.

The Temptation Was Great To Muster What Force We Could And Put Up A Fight. It's The Easiest Way Out, And The Most Satisfactory To Self-respect--but, Nearly Invariably, The Stupidest.

Life Is Glorious When It Is Happy; Days Are Carefree When They Are Happy; The Interplay Of Thought And Imagination Is Far Superior To That Of Muscle And Sinew.

It Is The Chief Characteristic Of The Religion Of Science That It Works.

Characteristics

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.

If I Had Felt Then As I Feel Now, Or As I Felt A Few Years After I Had Married Her, Nothing Could Possibly Have Persuaded Me To Marry A Woman Who Smoked. Dates, Yes. Sexual Adventures, Yes. But To Pin Myself Permanently Inside Closed Quarters With A Smoker? Never. Never. Never. Beauty Wouldn't Count, Sweetness Wouldn't Count, Suitability In Every Other Respect Wouldn't Count.

I Don't Subscribe To The Thesis, 'let The Buyer Beware,' I Prefer The Disregarded One That Goes, 'let The Seller Be Honest.'

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.

I'm An Indoors Person. I'm Not Afraid Of The Outdoors And I Penetrate It Easily And Cheerfully. However, I Must Admit I Like Central Park Better Than The Wilderness, And I Like The Canyons Of Manhattan Better Than Central Park, And I Like The Interior Of My Apartment Better Than The Canyons Of Manhattan, And I Like My Two Rooms Better With The Shades Down At All Times Than With The Shades Up. I'm Not An Agoraphobe At All, But I Am A Claustrophile, If You See The Distinction.

In Theory, There Is Nothing The Computer Can Do That The Human Mind Can Not Do. The Computer Merely Takes A Finite Amount Of Data And Performs A Finite Number Of Operations Upon Them. The Human Mind Can Duplicate The Process

The First Law Of Dietetics Seems To Be: If It Tastes Good, It's Bad For You.

[o]ur Statesmen, Our Businessmen, Our Everyman Must Take On A Science Fictional Way Of Thinking.

Inevitable Change

Nothing Has To Be True, But Everything Has To Sound True.

We All Know We Fall. Newton's Discovery Was That The Moon Falls, Too-and By The Same Rule That We Do.

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.

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.

Today's Science Fiction Is Tomorrow's Science Fact.

In Life, Unlike Chess, The Game Continues After Checkmate.

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.

Fiction Stories

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.

That's The Harm Of Close Encounters: That It Convinces Tens Of Millions That That's What Just Science Fiction Is.

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.

Believe In Yourself

In All The Known History Of Mankind, Advances Have Been Made Primarily In Physical Technology; In The Capacity Of Handling The Inanimate World About Man. Control Of Self And Society Has Been Left To To Chance Or To The Vague Gropings Of Intuitive Ethical Systems Based On Inspiration And Emotion. As A Result No Culture Of Greater Stability Than About Fifty-five Percent Has Ever Existed, And These Only As The Result Of Great Human Misery.

The Peace And Joy Of The Christmas Season Was Marred By A Proclamation Of A General Strike Of All The Military Forces Of The World. Panic Reigns In The Hearts Of All The Patriots Of Every Persuasion. Meanwhile, Fears Of Universal Disaster Sank To An All-time Low Over The World.

It Is Change Continuing Change, Inevitable Change That Is The Dominant Factor In Society Today.

All The Suffering That Humanity Ever Knew Can Be Traced To The One Fact That No Man In The History Of The Galaxy ... Could Really Understand One Another. Every Human Being Lived Behind An Impenetrable Wall Of Choking Mist Within Which No Other But He Existed.

This Game The Persian Magi Did Invent, The Force Of Eastern Wisdom To Express: From Thence To Busy Europeans Sent, And Styled By Modern Lombards Pensive Chess.

If You Have Talent, You Will Receive Some Measure Of Success - But Only If You Persist.

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.

It's Your Fiction That Interests Me. Your Studies Of The Interplay Of Human Motives And Emotion.

Dreams May Be Impossible, Yet Still Be Dreamed.

University President: Why Is It That You Physicists Always Require So Much Expensive Equipment? Now The Department Of Mathematics Requires Nothing But Money For Paper, Pencils, And Erasers . . . And The Department Of Philosophy Is Better Still. It Doesn't Even Ask For Erasers.

A Robot Must Obey The Orders Given It By Human Beings Except Where Such Orders Would Conflict With The First Law. [the Second Law Of Robotics]

If You Were To Insist I Was A Robot, You Might Not Consider Me Capable Of Love In Some Mystic Human Sense, But You Would Not Be Able To Distinguish My Reactions From That Which You Would Call Love So What Difference Would It Make?

There Is A Single Light Of Science, And To Brighten It Anywhere Is To Brighten It Everywhere.

Single Relationship

Science Fiction Writers Foresee The Inevitable, And Although Problems And Catastrophes May Be Inevitable, Solutions Are Not.

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?

In Life, People Will Take You At Your Own Reckoning.

Not Good Enough

It Is The Nature Of The Mind That Makes Individuals Kin, And The Differences In The Shape, Form Or Manner Of The Material Atoms Out Of Whose Intricate Relationships That Mind Is Built Are Altogether Trivial.

It Was Easy To Cover Up Ignorance By The Mystical Word "intuition.

The Bible Must Be Seen In A Cultural Context. It Didn't Just Happen. These Stories Are Retreads. But, Tell A Christian That -- No, No! What Makes It Doubly Sad Is That They Hardly Know The Book, Much Less Its Origins.

I Want To Be A Human Being, Nothing More And Nothing Less. ... I Don't Suppose We Can Ever Stop Hating Each Other, But Why Encourage That By Keeping The Old Labels With Their Ready-made History Of Millennial Hate?

When, However, The Lay Public Rallies Round An Idea That Is Denounced By Distinguished But Elderly Scientists And Supports That Idea With Great Fervor And Emotion - The Distinguished But Elderly Scientists Are Then, After All, Probably Right.

To Insult Someone We Call Him 'bestial. For Deliberate Cruelty And Nature, 'human' Might Be The Greater Insult.

Violence Is The Last Refuge Of The Incompetent.

Uncertainty That Comes From Knowledge (knowing What You Don't Know) Is Different From Uncertainty Coming From Ignorance.

A Robot Must Protect Its Own Existence As Long As Such Protection Does Not Conflict With The First Or Second Laws.

The Great Secret Of The Successful Fool Is That He's No Fool At All

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.

Self-education Is A Continuing Source Of Pleasure To Me, For The More I Know, The Fuller My Life Is And The Better I Appreciate My Own Existence

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.

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.

Science Is A Set Of Rules To Keep Us From Telling Lies To Each Other. All Scientists Really Have Is A Reputation For Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

The Final End Of Eternity, And The Beginning Of Infinity

I Do Not Fear Computers. I Fear The Lack Of Them.

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.

Robots Will Neither Be Common Nor Very Good In 2014, But They Will Be In Existence.

Early In My School Career, I Turned Out To Be An Incorrigible Disciplinary Problem. I Could Understand What The Teacher Was Saying As Fast As She Could Say It, I Found Time Hanging Heavy, So I Would Occasionally Talk To My Neighbor. That Was My Great Crime, I Talked In School.

There Is No Merit To Discipline Under Ideal Circumstances. I Must Have It In The Face Of Death Or It Is Worthless.

Science Doesn't Purvey Absolute Truth. Science Is A Mechanism... For Testing Your Thoughts Against The Universe.

Trending Author

Augusto Pinochet

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Charles William Eliot

Orville Redenbacher

Category