It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?
Interpretation
Often, the most evident truths are the hardest for us to recognize without guidance or reflection.
Isaac Asimov highlights the challenge of perceiving obvious truths in our lives. He suggests that, just as we cannot easily see our own nose without a mirror, we often overlook the obvious aspects of our existence and reality unless someone or something prompts us to reflect on them. This insight speaks to the human tendency to miss straightforward truths that are fundamental to our understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth, one can use this quote to emphasize the importance of self-reflection.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, 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.
Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.
Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent.
Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.
Common sense is as rare as genius.
People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are used sufficiently. That is to say, capacities are needs, and therefore are intrinsic values as well.
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