Isaac Asimov (1920–92) was a Russian-born American writer and scientist. Though he published several serious scientific works, he is particularly celebrated for his works of science fiction and his books on science for non-scientists.
Born in Petrovich, Russia, Asimov’s Jewish parents immigrated to the United States when he was three. He took a Ph.D. in chemistry at Columbia University and led a distinguished career as an academic biochemist.
Asimov authored over four hundred books on science, science fiction, history, and humor. As a science-fiction writer, he produced an extraordinary body of work including Foundation (1951,) Foundation and Empire (1952,) Second Foundation (1953,) The Caves of Steel (1954,) The Naked Sun (1957,) and the short stories, which form the collection I, Robot (1950.)
A leading spokesperson for science fiction, Asimov became ubiquitous on television and on the lecturing circuit, and was a tireless contributor to newspapers and magazines. Often regarded as a scientific seer, he coined the term ‘robotics.’
Asimov’s prominent nonfiction titles include Building Blocks of the Universe (1957,) The Stars in Their Courses (1971,) A Choice of Catastrophes (1979,) and The Exploding Suns: The Secrets of the Supernovas (1985.)
Asimov also published a history of the world, an anthology of humor, a two-volume plain man’s Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare (1970,) and three volumes of autobiography—In Memory Yet Green (1979,) In Joy Still Felt (1980,) and I Asimov: A Memoir (1994, posthumously.) He also wrote space stories for children under the pseudonym Paul French.
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The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
—Isaac Asimov
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Integrity, Morality, Morals
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man’s habits change quickly enough?
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Change
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Education, Progress, Self-improvement
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection… That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
—Isaac Asimov
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Computers
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
—Isaac Asimov
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
—Isaac Asimov
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
—Isaac Asimov
There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Science
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Change, Future
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Values
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
—Isaac Asimov
If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
—Isaac Asimov
Topics: Atheism
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
—Isaac Asimov
When I feel difficulty coming on, I switch to another book I’m writing. When I get back to the problem, my unconscious has solved it.
—Isaac Asimov
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
—Isaac Asimov
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