Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Profoundly inspirational Isaac Asimov quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
If you’re searching for beautiful quotes by authors that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by A. A. Milne, best Aeschylus quotes and greatest Aldous Huxley quotes.
Famous Isaac Asimov Quotes
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. 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
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. Isaac Asimov
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate. Isaac Asimov
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere. Isaac Asimov
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
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. 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
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. 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
I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible. Isaac Asimov
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
Any planet is Earth to those that live on it. Isaac Asimov
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. Isaac Asimov
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not Eureka! I found it! but That’s funny. Isaac Asimov
Creationists make it sound as though a theory is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. Isaac Asimov
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. 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
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. Isaac Asimov
From my close observation of writers they fall into two groups those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. Isaac Asimov
I write for the same reason I breathe because if I didn’t, I would die. 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
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome. 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 one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time. 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. Isaac Asimov
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. 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
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
Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. 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
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
Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. Isaac Asimov
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. 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
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not. 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. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself. Isaac Asimov
To insult someone we call him bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, human might be the greater insult. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov,
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander. Isaac Asimov
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
People think of education as something they can finish. Isaac Asimov
Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world. 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
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. 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
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. 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
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. Isaac Asimov
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. 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
The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists. Isaac Asimov
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well. Isaac Asimov
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right. Isaac Asimov
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest. Isaac Asimov
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. 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
It is not only the living who are killed in war. Isaac Asimov
You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason if you pick the proper postulates. 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
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
I write for the same reason I breathe because if I didn’t, I would die. 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
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. Isaac Asimov
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. Isaac Asimov
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander. 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
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
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. 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
It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly. Isaac Asimov
Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self education easier; failing that, it does nothing. 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
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
It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child. Isaac Asimov
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent. Isaac Asimov
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. Isaac Asimov
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. 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
Maybe happiness is this not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else. Isaac Asimov
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass. Isaac Asimov
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov
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. 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
