We can see, now, that the social background of the Empire makes wars of conquest impossible for it. Under weak Emperors, it is torn apart by generals competing for a worthless and surely death-bringing throne. Under strong Emperors, the Empire is frozen into a paralytic rigor in which disintegration apparently ceases for the moment, but only at the sacrifice of all possible growth.

— Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov Quotes

The music could no more repeat itself than could snowflakes, and could no more fail of beauty.

— Isaac Asimov

A man without weaknesses serves only to make everyone else conscious of his own imperfections. A primitive poet named Tennyson once wrote: ‘He is all fault who has no fault at all.

— Isaac Asimov

Since when does prejudice follow any law but its own.

— Isaac Asimov

When you think of human history, you think of the occasional human being whose minority view may be condemned by society but who wins out in the end and changes the world. What chance is there on Gaia for the great rebels of history?

— Isaac Asimov

It is one thing to be democratic, quite another to be inconvenienced.

— Isaac Asimov

Trantorians, poor specimens that they are, know nothing about open air, free water, and the true balance of nature.

— Isaac Asimov

Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues.

— Isaac Asimov

Gaia is just an extension of the desire for comfort and security extended to an entire planet. What’s wrong with that?” “What’s wrong with that,” said Trevize, “is that my house or my ship is engineered to suit me. I am not engineered to suit it. If I were part of Gaia, then no matter how ideally the planet was devised to suit me, I would be greatly disturbed over the fact that I was also being devised to suit it.

— Isaac Asimov

Why not? You and I are eccentrics. We’re certainly not typical of the people living on Terminus. As for criminals, that’s a matter of definition. And if criminals are the price we must pay for rebels, heretics, and geniuses, I’m willing to pay it. I demand the price be paid.

— Isaac Asimov

He seemed so to Hari Seldon, certainly. Seldon stopped his morning constitutional to watch him.

— Isaac Asimov

Every atom in me has a long history during which it may have been part of many living things, including human beings, and during which it may also have spent long periods as part of the sea, or in a lump of coal, or in a rock, or as a portion of the wind blowing upon us.

— Isaac Asimov

They want to be treated as equals, they say, and so they do, but, given a chance, they have no desire to treat others as equals.

— Isaac Asimov

A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment.” “Surely,” said Pelorat, “such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don’t think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive.

— Isaac Asimov

It had happened with the sudden catastrophe of a dream – and with all the unreal horror of a dream.

— Isaac Asimov

There are always tales and there is always a patriotic refusal to disbelieve, even though the tales are never in the least credible and are never believed by anyone not of the world that produces them.

— Isaac Asimov

Ideally there should be no detectable connection between any two Observers, so that the loss of one would not entail the loss of any other.

— Isaac Asimov

You are now too old to be made a scholar after my fashion, but you are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can.

— Isaac Asimov

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.

— Isaac Asimov

All is bad that is imposed from without,’ said Lizalor.

— Isaac Asimov

Do you want the truth behind it all?” “Go ahead, Cutie. You’re amusing.” “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. From now on, I serve the Master.

— Isaac Asimov
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