Isaac Asimov (1920–92) was a Russian-born American writer and scientist. Though he published several serious scientific works, he is mainly celebrated for his works of science fiction and his books on science for non-scientists.
Asimov was born in Petrovich, Russia. His Jewish parents immigrated to the United States when he was three. He took a PhD in chemistry at Columbia University and led a distinguished career as an academic biochemist.
Asimov authored over four hundred books on science, science fiction, history, and humor. As a science-fiction writer, he produced an extraordinary body of work including Foundation (1951,) Foundation and Empire (1952,) Second Foundation (1953,) The Caves of Steel (1954,) The Naked Sun (1957,) and the short stories, which form the collection I, Robot (1950.)
A leading spokesperson for science fiction, Asimov became ubiquitous on television and the lecturing circuit and was a tireless contributor to newspapers and magazines. Often regarded as a scientific seer, he coined the term ‘robotics.’
Asimov’s prominent nonfiction titles include Building Blocks of the Universe (1957,) The Stars in Their Courses (1971,) A Choice of Catastrophes (1979,) and The Exploding Suns: The Secrets of the Supernovas (1985.)
Asimov also published a history of the world, an anthology of humor, a two-volume plain man’s Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (1970,) and three volumes of autobiography—In Memory Yet Green (1979,) In Joy Still Felt (1980,) and I Asimov: A Memoir (1994, posthumously.) He also wrote space stories for children under the pseudonym Paul French.
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A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Values
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
Topics: Science Fiction
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
—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
Topics: Atheism
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Writing, Writers, Authors & Writing
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
—Isaac Asimov
There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Death
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
Topics: Future, Change
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
—Isaac Asimov
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
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Philosophy
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.
—Isaac Asimov
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science
Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live without them
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Wilderness
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Self-improvement, Progress, Education
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
Topics: Decision
I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Reading, Books
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
Topics: Change
When asked what he would do if he only had six months to live: Type faster.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Dreams
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Computers
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
Topics: Stars, Humanity, Future
The first law of dietetics seems to be if it tastes good, its bad for you.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Food
Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn’t look up. Well, maybe once.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Goals, Concentration, Focus
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
Topics: Wisdom
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (“I’ve found it!”) but “That’s funny…”
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science
I … am always glad to touch the living rock again and dip my hand in the high mountain air.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Women, Legacy, Teamwork, Success & Failure, Mathematics
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.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection… That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
—Isaac Asimov
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Communication, Manners
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
Topics: War
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
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
—Isaac Asimov
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.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Atheism
We can make inspired guesses, but we don’t know for certain what physical and chemical properties of the planet’s crust, its ocean, and its atmosphere made it so conducive to such a sudden appearance of life …
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Creation
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
Topics: Arguments, Humor
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.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Space
Though science can cause problems, it is not by ignorance that we will solve them.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science
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
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science Fiction
The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.
—Isaac Asimov
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Ignorance
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