ISAAC ASIMOV
Roving Mind

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.

ISAAC ASIMOV

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

ISAAC ASIMOV

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.” 

ISAAC ASIMOV

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. 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."

ISAAC ASIMOV
On Robert A. Heinlein
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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.

ISAAC ASIMOV
The Road to Infinity

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Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.

ISAAC ASIMOV
Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1978)

I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much confidence in non-scientists being wrong.

Seeing the publisher shifts the message into an unexpected direction.

ISAAC ASIMOV

First Law
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

ISAAC ASIMOV on Robert A. Heinlein

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.

ISAAC ASIMOV

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.”

ISAAC ASIMOV (1977)

We cannot afford enemies any more. Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray.Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together.

Let’s consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased seven-fold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with seven-fold pollution by, say, 2010 A.D., distributed among twice the population?

We’ll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate.

ISAAC ASIMOV

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.”