Isaac Asimov

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That`s funny..."

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

It`s always darkest before the dawn. When you`re down, there`s no direction but up.

It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

Species evolve only to meet the pressures of new environments. In a stable environment, a species may remain unchanged for millions of Centuries. Primitive man evolved rapidly because his environment was a harsh and changing one. Once, however, mankind learned to create his own environment, he created a pleasant and stable one, so he just naturally stopped evolving.

A moving finger having once written could never be lured back to unwrite.

It is a mistake, [...] to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort.

To the rest of the Galaxy, if they are aware of us at all, Earth is but a pebble in the sky. To us it is home, and all the home we know.

Was there such a thing as an instinctive yearning on the part of intelligent beings to expand outward, to reach the stars, to leave the prison of gravity behind?

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.

Man`s greatest asset is the unsettled mind.