The collection / 188 fragments

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188 results · Page 7 of 8Play this collection ▷

01c. 1956 AD

Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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02c. 1956 AD

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

Isaac Asimov / quote

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03c. 1956 AD

There is no Master but the Master,” he said, “and QT-1 is his prophet.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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04c. 1956 AD

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.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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05c. 1956 AD

They recognize the Master, now that I have preached Truth to them. All the robots do.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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06c. 1956 AD

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.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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07c. 1956 AD

What lasts in the reader’s mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what’s it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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08c. 1956 AD

Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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09c. 1956 AD

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 tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time... An individual life is one thread in the tapestry, and what is one thread compared to the whole?

Isaac Asimov / quote

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10c. 1956 AD

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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11c. 1956 AD

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.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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12c. 1956 AD

The thanks of a weak one are but of little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way- and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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13c. 1956 AD

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing—to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics—Well, they can do whatever they wish.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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14c. 1956 AD

Yet weren't all human beings simply human beings no matter what name you applied to them[?]

Isaac Asimov / quote

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15c. 1956 AD

[A]n 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.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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16c. 1956 AD

Somewhere on the world was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, rainbowed with flowers.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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17c. 1956 AD

There was something ghost-like and insubstantial about gases to these early chemists. They called liquids that turned into gases easily, "spirits." Methyl alcohol, they called "wood spirit"; ethyl alcohol, "wine spirit." Even today, alcoholic beverages are frequently referred to as "spirits." (Modern Arabs, from whose language the word "alcohol" was taken, call ethyl alcohol "spirit" from the English. This is a queer exchange.)

Isaac Asimov / quote

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18c. 1956 AD

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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19c. 1956 AD

Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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20c. 1956 AD

And now a hundred subjective years had passed in those hundred objective hours and he could no longer clearly visualize the university at all or the life of sad frustration he had been leading there toward the end.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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21c. 1956 AD

I think you are wrong, partner Elijah. My briefing on human characteristics here among the people of Earth includes the information that, unlike the men of the Outer Worlds, they are trained from birth to accept authority. Apparently this is the result of your way of living. One man, representing authority firmly enough, was quite sufficient, as I proved. Your own desire for a squad car was only an expression, really, of your almost instinctive wish for superior authority to take responsibility out of your hands. On my own world, I admit that what I did would have been most unjustified.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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22c. 1956 AD

Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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23c. 1956 AD

The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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24c. 1956 AD

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

Isaac Asimov / quote

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