Isaac Asimov

"The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise."

"One should cultivate an innocence, an awareness of self, and an unselfconsciousness of self which leaves one nothing to hide."

"Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing."

"No matter how the conomy and sociology of the neighbouring sectors of the Galaxy changes, there was always an elite; and it is always the characteristic of an elite that it possesses leisure as the great reward of its elite-hood."

"It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy."

"If there is a misuse of power, it is on her part. My crime is that I have never labored to make myself popular — I admit that much — and I have paid too little attention to fools who are old enough to be senile but young enough to have power."

"Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere."

"“Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence?” Pelorat said, “If you list it like that—” “List it any way you please,” said Trevize. “I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.”"

"Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues."

"It was easy to cover up ignorance by the mystical word “intuition.”"

"We abandoned the appearance of power to preserve the essence of it."

"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?"

"“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?”"

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

"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."

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

"Economics is on the side of humanity now."

"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."

"“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."

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

"“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.”"

"Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning."

"He believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don't believe in it at all."

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

"“Ponyets! They sent you?” “Pure chance,” said Ponyets, bitterly, “or the work of my own personal malevolent demon.”"

"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."

"He is energetic only in evading responsibility."

"He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others."

"You are a valuable subject, Brodrig. You always suspect far more than is necessary, and I have but to take half your suggested precautions to be utterly safe."

"To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was “system,” an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was “industry,” indecision when right was “caution,” and blind stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”"

"It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned."

"It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim."

"An unpleasant nest of nasty, materialistic and aggressive people, careless of the rights of others, imperfectly democratic at home though quick to see the minor slaveries of others, and greedy without end."