Quote

One of Walt Whitman's best-known poems is this one: When I heard the learn'd astronomer,.... The trouble is, Whitman is talking through his hat, but the poor soul didn't know any better

Isaac Asimov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Soul
Trouble
Better
Heard
Known
Astronomer
Talking
Whitman
Poor
Astronomers
Learn
Walt
Didn
Poems
Best
Hats

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

Image
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
Image
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.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I don't think I've ever held a racket in my hand ... There's got to be somebody in the US who isn't trying to play tennis and stinking up the court.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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.
Isaac Asimov
Image
All the hundreds of millions of people who, in their time, believed the Earth was flat never succeeded in unrounding it by an inch.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I don’t like anything that’s got to be. I want to know why.
Isaac Asimov
Image
There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library.
Isaac Asimov
Image
The Tyranni rule fifty worlds they are outnumbered hundreds to one. In such a position, simple force is insufficient. Devious methods, intrigue, assassination are their specialties. The net they weave across space is a wide one, and close-meshed. I can well believe that it extends across five hundred light-years to Earth.
Isaac Asimov
Image
There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?
Isaac Asimov
Image
Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Writing is my only interest. Even speaking is an interruption.
Isaac Asimov
Image
The whole world might know you and acclaim you, but someone in the past, forever unreachable, forever unknowing, spoils it all.
Isaac Asimov
Image
No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.
Isaac Asimov
Image
And [Asimov]'ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people's books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile — except that he signed: 'Harlan Ellison.
Isaac Asimov
Image
If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Early in my school career, I turned out to be an incorrigible disciplinary problem. I could understand what the teacher was saying as fast as she could say it, I found time hanging heavy, so I would occasionally talk to my neighbor. That was my great crime, I talked in school.
Isaac Asimov
Image
You must keep sending work out you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.
Isaac Asimov