Isaac Asimov

"Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais."

"Nothing succeeds like success."

"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."

"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?"

"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."

"“That was the time to begin all-out preparations for war.” “On the contrary. That was the time to begin all-out prevention of war.”"

"The work of each individual contributes to a totality and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives - past and present and to come - forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole?"

"There isn’t an instinct around that can’t give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway. In fact, if you go about it right, education gets easier with each generation."

"The stars, like dust, encircle me In living mists of light; And all of space I seem to see In one vast burst of sight."

"Well, it was healthy to miss once in a while. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance."

"“Then why did you run? A man who runs needs no other accusation.” “Is that so? Really?” cried Steen. “Well, I would run out of a burning building even if I had not set the fire myself.”"

"Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? A. I am."

"“Such unsubtle escapism! Really, Dr. Fara, such folly smacks of genius. A lesser mind would be incapable of it.""

"Well, then, arrest him. You can accuse him of something or other afterward."

"There are degrees of justice, Elijah. When the lesser is incompatible with the greater, the lesser must give way."

"Remember, you once said, Lije, that people sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don’t know how to fix themselves."

"Without the interplay of human against human, the chief interest in life is gone; most of the intellectual values are gone; most of the reason for living is gone."

"Goodbye, friend Elijiah, and remember that, although people apply the phrase to Aurora, it is, from this point on, Earth itself that is the true World of the Dawn."

"It is because you yourself fear the propaganda created, after all, only by the stupidity of your own bigots."

"That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men’s minds."

"The Autarch maintained his indifferent calm, but a certain lack of certainty was gathering, and he did not like to experience a lack of certainty. He liked nothing which made him aware of limitations. An Autarch should have no limitations, and on Lingane he had none that natural law did not impose."

"“At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish—criminally foolish—can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?” She said softly, “I have tried not to love you and, as you see, I have failed.”"

"Truth is a discredited commodity among diplomats."

"“You make interstellar politics sound a very dirty game.” “It is, but disapproving of dirt doesn’t remove it.”"

"Junz found revulsion growing strong within him. A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!"

"Economics is on the side of humanity now."

"“That insufferable, dull-witted donkey! That—” Hardin broke in: “Not at all. He’s merely the product of his environment. He doesn’t understand much except that ‘I got a gun and you ain’t.’ ”"

"It seems an uncommonly woundabout and hopelessly wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs."

"“Violence,” came the retort, “is the last refuge of the incompetent.”"

"First, you refused to admit that there was a menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith in the Emperor! Now you've shifted it to Hari Seldon. Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past – never on yourselves. It amounts to a diseased attitude – a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or Hari Seldon wiser. And that's wrong, don't you see? It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject – written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that? And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here,considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power. Don't you see? It's Galaxy wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration – a stagnation!"

"I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good. He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own words, he said, “Go, and sin no more!”"

"“Ah, the future good!” Leebig’s eyes glowed with passion and he seemed to grow less conscious of his listener and correspondingly more talkative. “A simple concept, you think. How many human beings are willing to accept a trifling inconvenience for the sake of a large future good? How long does it take to train a child that what tastes good now means a stomach-ache later, and what tastes bad now will correct the stomach-ache later? Yet you want a robot to be able to understand?”"

"A robot, the man had said, is logical but not reasonable."

"Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue happiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex. So there is always social friction in ordinary human societies. The action of social revolution and the reaction of guarding against such revolution or combating it once it has begun are the causes of a great deal of the human misery with which history is permeated."

"“Is that important?” “Everything is important till proven otherwise.”"

"Genes aren’t everything. Environment counts too, and environment can bend into actual psychosis where genes indicate only a potentiality for a particular psychosis."

"Anything could be found in figures if the search were long enough and hard enough and if the proper pieces of information were ignored or overlooked."

"Victories over ingrained patterns of thought are not won in a day or a year."

"The same man who could not find it in his conscience to curb his curiosity into the nuclear studies that might someday kill half of Earth would risk his life to save that of an unimportant fellow man."

"To the rest of the Galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Earth is but a pebble in the sky. To us it is home, and all the home we know."

"There can never be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corrdiors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember."

"There was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman. He couldn’t help that. That was the result of a childhood immersed in an atmosphere of bigotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature. Then you left it and saw it for what it was when you looked back."

"Nonsense. You are a military man and should know better. If there is one science into which man has probed continuously and successfully, it is that of military technology. No potential weapon would remain unrealized for ten thousand years."

"“That’s an amusing thought, if you’ll consider it.” “Do you find everything amusing?” “Why not? As an attitude toward life, it’s an amusing one. It’s the only adjective that will fit. Observe the universe, young man. If you can’t force amusement out of it, you might as well cut your throat, since there’s damn little good in it.”"

"Gillbret said, “Statistics show that one out of three stars has a planetary system.” Biron nodded. It was a well-worn statistic. Every child was taught that in elementary Galactography."

"I see your vile implication. My only explanation for it is that you are criminally insane."

"Trantor could win even such a war, but perhaps not without paying a price that would make victory only a pleasanter name for defeat."

"First, there must be an end to war and national rivalry and only then could one turn to the internal miseries that, after all, had external conflict as their chief cause."

"No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth."

"Daneel rose. He was alone - and with a Galaxy to care for."