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Science Quotes by Isaac Asimov

89 Science quotes by Isaac Asimov

All Science quotes Isaac Asimov’s page

Isaac Asimov points out that scientific work often begins from scratch, like a lab full of false starts and trials. He notes that tiny, unexpected insights can spark big breakthroughs. He also warns that clinging to old ideas, such as creationism, can block real progress.

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If a conclusion is not poetically balanced, it cannot be scientifically true.

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Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind.

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“Scientific method, hell! No wonder the Galaxy was going to pot.”

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“For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works,”

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Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact.

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Scientists expect to be improved on and corrected; they hope to be

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Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world.

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It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.

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There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

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The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but…

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“A knotty puzzle may hold a scientist up for a century, when it may be that a colleague has the solution already…

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There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.

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Scientists derive satisfaction from figuring out the puzzle. It's about the quest, not the grail.

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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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Science is a set of rules to keep us from telling lies to each other. All scientists really have is a reputation…

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If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of…

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When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if…

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“even the purest and most high-minded scientist finds it expedient sometimes to assault the fortress of truth with the blunt weapon of…

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Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world,…

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Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that…

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To those who are trained in science, creationism seems a bad dream, a sudden coming back to life of a nightmare, a…

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Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. I can write up to…

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“All knowledge is one. When a light brightens and illuminates a corner of a room, it adds to the general illumination of…

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How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. That is all…

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People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely…

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Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This…

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Science is dangerous. There is no question but that poison gas, genetic engineering, and nuclear weapons and power stations are terrifying. It…

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“How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is…

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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…

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Science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary-an enormous…

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“There was something ghost-like and insubstantial about gases to these early chemists. They called liquids that turned into gases easily, "spirits." Methyl…

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“A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of…

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“In Hamilton 's The Universe Wreckers ... it was in that novel that, for the first time, I learned Neptune had a…

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“And just how did you arrive at that remarkable conclusion, Mr. Mayor?" "In a rather simple way. It merely required the use…

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“The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century…

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“We now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the…

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“It is possible to be too stable. No Outer World has colonized a new planet in two and a half centuries.. are…

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Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.

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It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold.

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More by Isaac Asimov

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…

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…

Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don't know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.

“Don't you see? It's Galaxy-wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration - a stagnation!”

So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.

It is in meeting the great tests that mankind can most successfully rise to great heights. Out of danger and restless insecurity comes the…

“It might seem to you, Peter, that a truck driver, one step above an ape in your view, can't remember. But truck drivers can…

When life is so harsh that a man loses all hope in himself, then he raises his eyes to a shining rock, worshipping it,…

“You are a military man and should know better. If there is one science into which man has probed continuously and successfully, it is…

“temperatura constante de mais ou menos 21 graus”

“Human beings can tolerate an immortal robot, for it doesn't matter how long a machine lasts, but they cannot tolerate an immortal human being…

“if people believe this, they would act on that belief. Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted”

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…

There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance implies only ignorance that may someday be…

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. [The Second Law…