Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimovwas an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was prolific and wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 January 1920
CityPetrovichi, Russia
CountryUnited States of America
Night will always be a time of fear and insecurity, and the heart will sink with the sun.
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.
In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses.
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.
The spell of power never quite releases its hold.
I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.
What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes.
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.
There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state. -(from "The Bicentennial Man) story)
At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past .
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.
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.
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.
If a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true.