Isaac Asimov

Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.

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.

The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.

In life, people will take you at your own reckoning.

The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Naturally, since [the Sumerians] didn't know what caused the flood anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.)

When I die I won't go to heaven or hell; there will just be nothingness.

I am not responsible for what other people think. I am responsible only for what I myself think, and I know what that is. No idea I've ever come up with has ever struck me as a divine revelation. Nothing I have ever observed leads me to think there is a God watching over me.

To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn.

The vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic.

Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?

Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.

The dangers that face the world can, every one of them, be traced back to science. The salvations that may save the world will, every one of them, be traced back to science.

Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end.

There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.

Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don't know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.

He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.

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?