Quote

Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred?

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
Ability
Superior
Superiors
Object
Mental
Displays
Hatred
Classmates
Objects
Athletic
Wonder
Admiration
Anyone
Display

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

Image
The peace and joy of the Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the world.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Surely no child, and few adults, have ever watched a bird in flight without envy.
Isaac Asimov
Image
The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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.
Isaac Asimov
Image
Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.
Isaac Asimov
Image
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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
Image
In a properly automated and educated world, then, machines may prove to be the true humanizing influence. It may be that machines will do the work that makes life possible and that human beings will do all the other things that make life pleasant and worthwhile
Isaac Asimov
Image
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
Isaac Asimov
Image
I have never written a book that didn't teach me far more than it taught my reader.
Isaac Asimov
Image
It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall prey to nonsense.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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
Image
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
Isaac Asimov
Image
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