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The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.

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
Believe
Tells
Refuse
Belief
Law
Energy
Science
Eco
Nothing
Conservation
Something
Endurance

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

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Scientific apparatus offers a window to knowledge, but as they grow more elaborate, scientists spend ever more time washing the windows.
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Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise - even in their own field.
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There is no more desire to live past one's time than to die before it.
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There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
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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.
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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.
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If a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true.
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The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.
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The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders.
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With both people and computers on the job, computer error can be more quickly tracked down and corrected by people and, conversely, human error can be more quickly corrected by computers. What it amounts to is that nothing serious can happen unless human error and computer error take place simultaneously. And that hardly ever happens.
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There is no merit to discipline under ideal circumstances. I must have it in the face of death or it is worthless.
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If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable.
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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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If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.
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This idea [standardized time zones] was first advanced and fought for by Sandford Fleming of Canada and Charles F. Dowd of the United States. I mention them chiefly because like so many benefactors of mankind they have been rewarded by total obscurity.
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Only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed.
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An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.
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Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law no change. Despotism! They know one rule force. Maldistribution! They know one desire to hold what is theirs.
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Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see.
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Fifty years, I hackneyed, is a long time. Not when you're looking back at them, she said. You wonder how they vanished so quickly.
Isaac Asimov