Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I figure that if God actually does exist, he is big enough to understand an honest difference of opinion.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.
The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research.
Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see.
It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.
The significant chemicals of living tissue are rickety and unstable, which is exactly what is needed for life.
There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.
A scientist is as weak and human as any man, but the pursuit of science may ennoble him even against his will.
To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.
My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn't worth discussing.
Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism... for testing your thoughts against the universe.
There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.
That's the harm of Close Encounters: that it convinces tens of millions that that's what just science fiction is.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Old people think young people haven't learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love.
There is no merit to discipline under ideal circumstances. I must have it in the face of death or it is worthless.
A neat and orderly laboratory is unlikely. It is, after all, so much a place of false starts and multiple attempts.
Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous.
You show me someone who can't understand people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.
Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live without them.
The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers.
Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.
There was this superstitious fear on the part of the pygmies of the present for the relics of the giants of the past.
I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.
Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don't know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.
Naturally, there's got to be a limit for I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.
The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'
It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.
Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us.
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.
Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.
You wait for the war to happen like vultures. If you want to help, prevent the war. Don't save the remnants. Save them all.
The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate.
The greatest weapons in the conquest of knowledge are an understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on.
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.
I don't subscribe to the thesis, 'Let the buyer beware,' I prefer the disregarded one that goes, 'Let the seller be honest.'
Do not forget that a traitor within our ranks, known to us, can do more harm to the enemy than a loyal man can do good to us.
In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses.
It is almost impossible to think of something no one has thought of before, but it is always possible to add different frills.
[Social] science fiction is that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance on human beings.
The whole world might know you and acclaim you, but someone in the past, forever unreachable, forever unknowing, spoils it all.
Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.