How harmful overspecialization is. It cuts knowledge at a million points and leaves it bleeding.
But he no longer feared the fear! It was not something to run from, that fear, but something to fight.
Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless – or even actually harmful.
People say ‘It’s as plain as the noise on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone hold a mirror up to you?
I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking.
With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know.
We must not be taken in by the myth of youth, the unending propaganda to the effect that young men are younger than old men; that they are better looking; that they are slimmer, stronger and more athletic; that they can hold a girl in more romantic fashion and speak more sweetly.
An 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.
It was a long time since he’d done any actual clinical work, and obviously his sojourn among the academics at Saro University had attenuated the professional detachment that allows members of the healing arts to confront the ill without being overwhelmed by compassion and sorrow. He was surprised at that, how tenderhearted he seemed to have become, how thin-skinned.
After all, all devices have their dangers. The discovery of speech introduced communication – and lies. The discovery of fire introduced cooking – and arson. The discovery of the compass improved navigation – and destroyed civilizations in Mexico and Peru. The automobile is marvelously useful – and kills Americans by the tens of thousands each year. Medical advances have saved lives by the millions – and intensified the population explosion.
Space, man, have you no respect for science?
When everything impossible had been eliminated and what remains is supernatural, then someone is lying.
The colonization of space is the only possible salvation of Earth.
Mr. Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.
I have the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I have contributed artistically, literally, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?
The religion we have is our all-important instrument towards that end. With it we have brought the Four Kingdoms under our control, even at the moment when they would have crushed us. It is the most potent device known with which to control men and worlds.
You’ll have such proof as exists. You are the only one responsible for your own wants.
There are degrees of justice, Elijah. When the lesser is incompatable with the greater, the lesser must give way.
The word “robot” is from a Czech word meaning “compulsory labor.
For the first time the specific and express thought came to him. And though he pushed it away in horror, he knew that, having once come, it would return. The thought was simply this: That he would ruin Eternity, if he had to. The worst of it was that he knew he had the power to do it.