Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
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.” -R. Daneel Olivaw.
An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.
It’s the writing that teaches you.
A persistent rumor has circulates in the USA: There are two intelligent races living on the surface of planet Earth: the standard people and the hungarians.
Where is the world whose people don’t prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty?
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.
A knotty puzzle may hold a scientist up for a century, when it may be that a colleague has the solution already and is not even aware of the puzzle that it might solve.
To Mankind And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won after all.
Fighting and scars are part of a trader’s overhead. But fighting is only useful when there’s money at the end, and if I can get it without, so much the sweeter.
They recognize the Master, now that I have preached Truth to them. All the robots do.
You don’t beat refusal to believe in a frontal attack.
It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus.
Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions – not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
It’s just that old people always think young people haven’t really learned about love; and young people think that old people have forgotten about love; and, you know, they’re both wrong.
Stoop, then, or you will be beaten to your knees. Stoop voluntarily, and you may save a remnant. You have depended on metal and power and they have sustained you as far as they could. You have ignored mind and morale and they have failed you.
A “simple aspect of science” may be defined as one which, through good fortune, I happen to understand.
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.
A happy wall is a long-lived wall, a practical wall, a useful wall.
A wall is happy when it is well designed, when it rests firmly on its foundation, when its symmetry balances its part and produces no unpleasant stresses. Good design can be worked out on the mathematical principles of mechanics.