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Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.

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
Trying
Thoughts
Way
System
Thinking
Seeing
Knowledge
Testing
Whether
Mechanism
Universe
Match
Science
Improve
Nature
Accounts

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

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Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.
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They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth they want their traditions.
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I have written 240 books on a wide variety of topics. . . . Some of it I based on education I received in my school, but most of it was backed by other ways of learning - chiefly in the books I obtained in the public library.
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So, then, what is style? There are two chief aspects of any piece of writing: 1) what you say and 2) how you say it. The former is content and the latter is style.
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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.
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Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.
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Author's Notes: This story starts with section 6. This is not a mistake. I have my own subtle reasoning. So, just read, and enjoy.
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Past glories are poor feeding.
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Every religion seems like a fantasy to outsiders, but as holy truth to those of the faith.
Isaac Asimov
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What lasts in the reader's mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.
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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
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Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.
Isaac Asimov
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Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
Isaac Asimov
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I don’t like anything that’s got to be. I want to know why.
Isaac Asimov
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When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys.
Isaac Asimov
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He had read much, if one considers his long life but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.
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Computerization eliminates the middleman
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.
Isaac Asimov
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Suppose we were to teach creationism. What would be the content of the teaching? Merely that a creator formed the universe and all species of life ready-made? Nothing more? No details?
Isaac Asimov
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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