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Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

Isaac Asimov

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Isaac Asimov
Age: 72 †
Born: 1920
Born: January 2
Died: 1992
Died: April 6
Author
Autobiographer
Biochemist
Journalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Science Writer
Scientist
Isaak Osimov
Paul French
Asimov
Isaak Ozimov
Wise
Wisdom
Comprehension
Knowledge
Suppose
Learn
Destroy
Use
Remains
Better
Ignorance
Enough
Learning
Even
Control

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

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Old people think young people haven't learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love.
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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.
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A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. [The Second Law of Robotics]
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It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.
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Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind.
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I would argue that a truly developed country would be beyond Presidents and Kings. In a world with some semblance of equality, each liberal-minded woman, each gay person, and indeed almost every person could be their own President. In a world of equals, what real service does a ruler provide?
Isaac Asimov
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I do not use airplanes. They strike me as unsporting. You can have an automobile accident-and survive. You can be on a sinking ship-and survive. You can be in an earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption, tornado, what you will-and survive. But if your plane crashes, you do not survive. And I say the heck with it.
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The history of science is full of revolutionary advances that required small insights that anyone might have had, but that, in fact, only one person did.
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Having reached 451 books as of now doesn't help the situation. If I were to be dying now, I would be murmuring, Too bad! Only four hundred fifty-one. (Those would be my next-to-last words. The last ones will be: I love you, Janet.) [They were. -Janet.]
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Only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed.
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John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
Isaac Asimov
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There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
Isaac Asimov
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All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.
Isaac Asimov
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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
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The appearance of strength is all about you. It would seem to last forever. However... the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen... and you will hear the creaking.
Isaac Asimov
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The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Isaac Asimov
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I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
Isaac Asimov
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Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.
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I want to be a human being, nothing more and nothing less. ... I don't suppose we can ever stop hating each other, but why encourage that by keeping the old labels with their ready-made history of millennial hate?
Isaac Asimov
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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.
Isaac Asimov