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2be316f
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I am afraid a monster is grown that will devour all of us. Yet we must fight him.
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hopelessness
fear
monster
hopeless
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Isaac Asimov |
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b3b8348
|
A couple of months ago I had a dream, which I remember with the utmost clarity. (I don't usually remember my dreams.) I dreamed I had died and gone to Heaven. I looked about and knew where I was-green fields, fleecy clouds, perfumed air, and the distant, ravishing sound of the heavenly choir. And there was the recording angel smiling broadly at me in greeting. I said, in wonder, "Is this Heaven?" The recording angel said, "It is." I sai..
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heaven
writing
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Isaac Asimov |
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ccc9d91
|
I can't bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification...It's these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.
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Isaac Asimov |
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dde5d87
|
Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.
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pithy
maths
mathematics
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Isaac Asimov |
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bd22c80
|
The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.
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youth
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Isaac Asimov |
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aeca9d3
|
Pyscho-history dealt not with man, but with man-masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball. The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again.
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Isaac Asimov |
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69b6908
|
I, on the other hand, am a finished product. I absorb electrical energy directly and utilize it with an almost one hundred percent efficiency. I am composed of strong metal, am continuously conscious, and can stand extremes of environment easily. These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.
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science
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Isaac Asimov |
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035a9fd
|
The first problem of living is to minimize friction with the crowds that surround you on all sides.
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population-density
urban-life
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Isaac Asimov |
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e93f5f7
|
It is in meeting the great tests that mankind can most successfully rise to great heights. Out of danger and restless insecurity comes the force that pushes mankind to newer and loftier conquests. Can you understand that? Can you understand that in averting the pitfalls and miseries that beset man, Eternity prevents men from finding their own bitter and better solutions, the real solutions that come from conquering difficulty, not avoiding ..
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Isaac Asimov |
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7695fd8
|
Childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child
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Isaac Asimov |
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a57bf0f
|
You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren't patriotic?" "Notoriously not. Pioneers never are."
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trade
pioneers
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Isaac Asimov |
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ed2e1c6
|
Author's Note: This story starts with section 6. This is not a mistake. I have my own subtle reasoning. So, just read, and enjoy.
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Isaac Asimov |
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4da8d90
|
Galaxy! When can a man know he is not a puppet? can a man know he is not a puppet?
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Isaac Asimov |
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a1295c3
|
All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end.
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philosophical
mystery
|
Isaac Asimov |
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89ef433
|
Scientific method, hell! No wonder the Galaxy was going to pot.
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Isaac Asimov |
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51420fb
|
Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition.
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|
human-intelligence
women-s-intuition
intuition
|
Isaac Asimov |
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bb5be71
|
You see, proteins, as I probably needn't tell you, are immensely complicated groupings of amino acids and certain other specialized compounds, arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns that are as unstable as sunbeams on a cloudy day. It is this instability that is life, since it is forever changing its position in an effort to maintain its identity--in the manner of a long rod balanced on an acrobat's nose.
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ontology
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
f597964
|
The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect--but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.
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Isaac Asimov |
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2031e08
|
What would you consider a good job?" Answered as follows: "A good job is one in which I don't have to work, and get paid a lot of money." When I heard that I cheered and yelled and felt that he should be given an A+, for he had perfectly articulated the American dream of those who despise knowledge. What a politician that kid would have made." --
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work
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
9b22f5a
|
The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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af6c22d
|
One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason.
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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2479f6a
|
all the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy, until Hari Seldon, and very few men thereafter, could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located - so that each might grope toward the ..
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Isaac Asimov |
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b35ed18
|
Married life had taught him the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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0010335
|
Don't you see? It's Galaxy-wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration - a stagnation!
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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f263ca6
|
Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy.
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Isaac Asimov |
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170b41f
|
Do not forget that a traitor within our ranks, known to us, can do more harm to the enemy than a loyal man can do good to us.
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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f32dd2b
|
You don't need schooling to be a philosopher. Just an active mind and experience with life.
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|
Isaac Asimov |
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5acaf79
|
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 hapiness. 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 ..
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society
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
bfcc405
|
The advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.
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|
|
Isaac Asimov |
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95364a3
|
A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man'..
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|
Isaac Asimov |
|
5743460
|
If I had felt then as I feel now, or as I felt a few years after I had married her, nothing could possibly have persuaded me to marry a woman who smoked. Dates, yes. Sexual adventures, yes. But to pin myself permanently inside closed quarters with a smoker? Never. Never. Never. Beauty wouldn't count, sweetness wouldn't count, suitability in every other respect wouldn't count.
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|
smoking
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
69c666b
|
The robot had no feelings, only positronic surges that mimicked those feelings. (And perhaps human beings had no feelings, only neuronic surges that were interpreted as feelings.)
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|
|
Isaac Asimov |
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4dd9024
|
There is no Master but the Master," he said, "and QT-1 is his prophet." --
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|
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
25bcb31
|
There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum.
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|
|
Isaac Asimov |
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fbf70f9
|
And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots.
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|
politics
insubordination
mayor
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
8be3468
|
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
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|
universe
space
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
57f9240
|
It is a mistake," he said, "to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort."
|
|
truth
wisdom
lost-values
needs-and-wants
self-injurious-behaviors
social-satire-predictability
the-way-the-world-works
prophetic
hedonism
human-nature
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
d8a8c31
|
Despite all that education and experience can do, I retain a certain level of unsophistication that I cannot eradicate and that my friends find amusing. In fact, I think I sometimes detect conspiratorial plottings among my friends to protect me against my own lack of sophistication. I don't mind. I suspect that I am never quite as unsophisticated as they think I am, but I don't mind.
|
|
humor
sophistication
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
d5adf39
|
It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus.
|
|
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
a537bce
|
All knowledge is one. When a light brightens and illuminates a corner of a room, it adds to the general illumination of the entire room. Over and over again, scientific discoveries have provided answers to problems that had no apparent connection with the phenomena that gave rise to the discovery.
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|
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
17db13c
|
Well, he used to say that only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true
|
|
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
c04b861
|
The whole world might know you and acclaim you, but someone in the past, forever unreachable, forever unknowing, spoils it all.
|
|
asimov
|
Isaac Asimov |
|
b1872b3
|
Does everyone just believe what he wants to?" "As long as possible. Sometimes longer." "What about you?" "You mean, am I human? Certainly. I don't believe I'm really old. I believe I'm quite attractive. I believe you seek out my company because you think I'm charming - even when you insist on turning the conversation to physics."
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|
Isaac Asimov |
|
5a0f2a1
|
Encyclopedias don't win wars.
|
|
|
Isaac Asimov |