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a49dc06
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There are many people, many worlds who believe in supernaturalism in one form or another... religion, if you like the word better. We may disagree with them in one way or another, but we are as likely to be wrong in our disbelief as they in their belief. In any case, there is no disgrace in such belief and my questions were not intended as insults.
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Isaac Asimov |
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23e22ec
|
They (Medievalists) are soft, dreamy people who find life too hard for them here and get lost in an ideal world of the past that never really existed.
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stagnation
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Isaac Asimov |
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fa3b41e
|
Mr Baley", said Quemot, "you can't treat human emotions as though they were built about a positronic brain". "I'm not saying you can. Robotics is a deductive science and sociology an inductive one. But mathematics can be made to apply in either case."
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robotics
science-fiction
sociology
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Isaac Asimov |
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00fbecf
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if we look forward to a future in which mankind behaves rationally and avoids self-destruction, we can visualize a world that will be more complicated than the one we know today, but a world that will run better and, most of all, a world in which the individual will count for more, not less.
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Isaac Asimov |
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0537abb
|
Often, one compensates by playing an instrument, or going hiking, or joining some club. In other words, one creates a new type of society, when not working, in which one can feel more at home.
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Isaac Asimov |
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bf06b1e
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Earthmen may even rule at Trantor for a generation, but their children will become Trantorians, and in their turn will look down upon the remnant on Earth.
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Isaac Asimov |
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f05ae0d
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I am trying now to re-create in my mind the picture of the man as I saw him in 1939- he, the revered author of , I the novice. I think I can rely on my near-photographic memory for the purpose. (I call it "near-photographic" because I can only remember things that happen to be lying around near photographs.) Let's see, as I recall, he is six-feet seven-inches tall (when he is sitting down, that is) with a long and majestic English face. Th..
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Isaac Asimov |
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0097f96
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Your phraseology is obscure, but I think I understand.
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Isaac Asimov |
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5a4be69
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To a thoughtful biographer, [Ebling Mis's house] was "the symbolization of a retreat from a non-academic reality", a society columnist gushed silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder", a University Ph.D called it brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized", a non-university friend said, "good for a drink anytime and you can put your feet on the sofa", and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for color, spoke of..
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Isaac Asimov |
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e9fbf98
|
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?
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Isaac Asimov |
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d934644
|
A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself. And you, Lee, have got to worry even if you must kill yourself to invent something to worry about.
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Isaac Asimov |
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7ca6609
|
Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence.
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Isaac Asimov |
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aa3b5e2
|
Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer.
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Isaac Asimov |
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0aaf680
|
I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.
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Isaac Asimov |
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22a1af7
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Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past--never on yourselves.
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Isaac Asimov |
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bbe7fba
|
If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown. They make the children come up here once a year, after they're five. I don't know if it does any good. They don't get enough of it, really, and the first few times they scream themselves into hysteria. They ought to start as soon as ..
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Isaac Asimov |
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06677ac
|
The City was the acme of efficiency, but it made demands of its inhabitants. It asked them to live in a tight routine and order their lives under a strict and scientific control.
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urbanization
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Isaac Asimov |
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93a1b49
|
There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously ..
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revolution
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Isaac Asimov |
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3d70f3f
|
It is a difficult choice sometimes whether to feel revolted at the male sex or merely to dismiss them as contemptible.
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Isaac Asimov |
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442ec4b
|
For what could any Entity, conscious of eternal existence, want - but an end?
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existence
life
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Isaac Asimov |
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d99b224
|
You wash your hands, don't you?" Bayley's eyes dropped to his hands. They were as clean as need be. "Yes," he said. "All right. I suppose it's a measure of instability to feel such revulsion at dirty hands as to be unable to clean an oily mechanism by hand even in a emergency. Still, in the ordinary course of living, the revulsion keeps you clean, which is good."
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revulsion
instability
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Isaac Asimov |
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7e340cb
|
Psychohistory was the quintessence of sociology; it was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations. The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically.
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Isaac Asimov |
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5287aa5
|
People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.
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Isaac Asimov |
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bc71ad2
|
Even Magnifico was put to work on the calculating machine for routine computations, a type of work, which, once explained, was a source of great amusement to him and at which he was surprisingly proficient.
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Isaac Asimov |
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a2a9f62
|
La forma mas facil de solucionar un problema es negar su existencia.
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Isaac Asimov |
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be26dbb
|
Yet there was this to be said for unfavorable relationships in the wealth-distribution equation. It meant the existence of a leisure class and the development of an attractive way of life which, at its best, encouraged culture and grace. As long as the other end of the scale was not too badly off, as long as the leisure classes did not entirely forget their responsibilities while enjoying their privileges, as long as their culture took no o..
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Isaac Asimov |
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059deb3
|
The clown's eyes sidled towards her, then drew away quickly. "But they kept me away from you earlier-and, on my word, you may laugh, but I was lonely for missing friendship."
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magnifico
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Isaac Asimov |
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52719b6
|
He's but a windlet that blows the dust about my ankles. There is another that I flee, and he is a storm that sweeps the worlds aside and throws them plunging at each other.
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Isaac Asimov |
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6d49ca6
|
The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: "No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time."
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Isaac Asimov |
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bf0d3d2
|
It has been said in this courtroom that only a human being can be free. It seems to me that only someone who wishes for freedom can be free. I wish for freedom.
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Isaac Asimov |
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9f74441
|
I shall not be alive a half decade hence," said Seldon, "and yet it is of overpowering concern to me. Call it idealism. Call it an identification of myself with that mystical generalization to which we refer by the term, 'man."
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philosophy
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Isaac Asimov |
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69940bd
|
Since I do not believe in so many things, it is not difficult for me to disbelieve in the Fall as well, so that I am entirely convinced I will be telling the truth to the people.
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Isaac Asimov |
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d5d9fcd
|
In the empty expanses of space, the wandering traders need men like myself to care for the spiritual side of a life so given over to commerce, and worldly pursuits.
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Isaac Asimov |
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c35acae
|
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion--the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
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science
humor
arthur-charles-clarke
clarke
robotics
scientists
sci-fi
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Isaac Asimov |
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e18bb92
|
Somewhere on the world was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, rainbowed with flowers.
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garden
colors
flowers
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Isaac Asimov |
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9e8228b
|
Let them all come,' said the Commdor, expansively. 'A symbolic friendly union of our nations. It will give us a chance for further friendly discussion. But one thing.' his face lengthened and grew stern, 'none of your religion. Don't think that all this is an entering wedge for the missionaries.' 'Commdor,' said Mallow, dryly, 'I give you my word that religion would cut my profits.
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Isaac Asimov |
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4cbf297
|
The Sun burned down in a warm contrasting world of white and black, of white Sun against black sky and white rolling ground mottled with black shadow. The bright sweet smell of the Sun on every exposed square centimeter of metal contrasting with the creeping death-of-aroma on the other side. He lifted his hand and stared at it, counting the fingers. Hot-hot-hot-turning, putting each finger, one by one, into the shadow of the others and the ..
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Isaac Asimov |
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54b27c6
|
Now we can see what makes mathematics unique. Only in mathematics is there no significant correction-only extension. Once the Greeks had developed the deductive method, they were correct in what they did, correct for all time. Euclid was incomplete and his work has been extended enormously, but it has not had to be corrected. His theorems are, every one of them, valid to this day. Ptolemy may have developed an erroneous picture of the plane..
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Isaac Asimov |
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ff5e3f6
|
It lasted for a long time, I believe." "A very long time. It was a great success, but even great successes come to a natural end."
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success
longevity
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Isaac Asimov |
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d0667e8
|
Un nou-nascut crede ca el reprezinta intregul univers, dar greseste - asa cum isi da seama destul de repede. De aceea, el trebuie sa studieze lumea exterioara lui - trebuie sa incerce sa invete unde se afla granitele dintre persoana sa si restul lumii - pentru a putea intelege cine este si cum se cuvine sa-si duca viata.
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life
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Isaac Asimov |
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64f45e2
|
Innumerable surveys have made it quite clear that when a respectable elderly man makes up to a giggling young lady, it is not the giggling young lady so accosted that is offended by the action, but rather the granite-faced dowager, standing unnoticed by her side, who is. It is she who makes derogatory remarks concerning dirty old men, and is quite likely to attack him with an umbrella.
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isaac-asimov
the-sensuous-dirty-old-man
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Isaac Asimov |
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dc9be7c
|
In fact, once when I imprinted on a young lady's lips a chaste and fatherly kiss for about five minutes, I stopped and said, sorrowfully, "Wouldn't you rather be kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy?" She frowned and said, "Of course not. If you'd ever been kissed by a twenty-one-year-old boy you'd know better than to ask." Remember that. In any direct competition, the old man is bound to win and the young man knows it."
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isaac-asimov
the-sensuous-dirty-old-man
|
Isaac Asimov |
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f09ca88
|
centuries would yet pass before the mighty works of fifty generations of humans would decay past use. Only the declining powers of men, themselves, rendered them useless now.
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Isaac Asimov |
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74e3abc
|
During the century after , 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.
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science
scientific-knowledge
master
newton
|
Isaac Asimov |