"Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young." (Isaac Asimov, "Pebble in the Sky", 1950)
"Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations." (Isaac Asimov, "Foundation and Empire", 1952)
"[…] infinity is not a large number or any kind of number at all; at least of the sort we think of when we say 'number'. It certainly isn't the largest number that could exist, for there isn't any such thing." (Isaac Asimov, "Asimov on Numbers", 1959)
"Scientific theories have a tendency to fit the intellectual fashions of the time." (Isaac Asimov, "The Weighting Game", 1962)
"The mysteries of the universe and the questions that scientists strive to answer never come to an end. For that we should be grateful. A universe in which their were no mysteries for curious men to ponder would be a very dull universe indeed."(Isaac Asimov, "The Search for the Elements", 1962
"[...] the orchard of science is a vast globe-encircling monster, without a map, and known to no one man; indeed, to no group of men fewer than the whole international mass of creative scientists. Within it, each observer clings to his own well-known and well-loved clump of trees. If he looks beyond, it is usually with a guilty sigh." (Isaac Asimov, "View from a Height", 1963)
"There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before." (Isaac Asimov, "Adding a Dimension", 1964)
"[…] it took men about five thousand years, counting from the beginning of number symbols, to think of a symbol for nothing." (Isaac Asimov, "Of Time and Space and Other Things", 1965)
"If it is exciting to probe the unknown and shed light on what was dark before, then more and more excitement surely lies ahead of us." (Isaac Asimov, "The Universe: From Flat Earth to Quasar", 1966)
"The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists." (Isaac Asimov, "The Gods Themselves", 1972)
"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, "The Three Numbers", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1974)
"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing." (Isaac Asimov, "Science Past, Science Future", 1975)
"If entropy must constantly and continuously increase, then the universe is remorselessly running down, thus setting a limit (a long one, to be sure) on the existence of humanity. To some human beings, this ultimate end poses itself almost as a threat to their personal immortality, or as a denial of the omnipotence of God. There is, therefore, a strong emotional urge to deny that entropy must increase." (Isaac Asimov," Asimov on Physics", 1976)
"People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be." (Isaac Asimov, "The Planet That Wasn't", 1976)
"The force of gravity-though it is the first force with which we are acquainted, and though it is always with us, and though it is the one with a strength we most thoroughly appreciate-is by far the weakest known force in nature. It is first and rearmost." (Isaac Asimov, 1976)
"It is one thing to be able to make predictions. It is another to listen to the predictions you have made and to act upon them." (Isaac Asimov, "The Road to Infinity", 1979)
"How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers." (Isaac Asimov, "The Roving Mind", 1983)
"If arithmetical skill is the measure of intelligence, then computers have been more intelligent than all human beings all along. If the ability to play chess is the measure, then there are computers now in existence that are more intelligent than any but a very few human beings. However, if insight, intuition, creativity, the ability to view a problem as a whole and guess the answer by the 'feel' of the situation, is a measure of intelligence, computers are very unintelligent indeed. Nor can we see right now how this deficiency in computers can be easily remedied, since human beings cannot program a computer to be intuitive or creative for the very good reason that we do not know what we ourselves do when we exercise these qualities." (Isaac Asimov, "Machines that Think", 1983)
"If we assume the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent being, one that knows and can do absolutely everything, then to my own very limited self, it would seem that existence for it would be unbearable. Nothing to wonder about? Nothing to ponder over? Nothing to discover? Eternity in such a heaven would surely be indistinguishable from hell." (Isaac Asimov, "'X' Stands for Unknown", 1984)
"Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process."(Isaac Asimov, "'X' Stands for Unknown", 1984)
"Science is a process. It is a way of thinking, a manner of approaching and of possibly resolving problems, a route by which one can produce order and sense out of disorganized and chaotic observations. Through it we achieve useful conclusions and results that are compelling and upon which there is a tendency to agree." (Isaac Asimov, "'X' Stands for Unknown", 1984)
"The process of science [...] involves a slow forward movement through the reachable portions of the Universe - a gradual unfolding of parts of the mystery." (Isaac Asimov, "'X' Stands for Unknown", 1984)
"Human beings are very conservative in some ways and virtually never change numerical conventions once they grow used to them. They even come to mistake them for laws of nature." (Isaac Asimov, "Foundation and Earth", 1986)
"A hypothesis may be simply defined as a guess. A scientific hypothesis is an intelligent guess." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"A scientist is as weak and human as any man, but the pursuit of science may ennoble him even against his will." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Any increase in knowledge anywhere helps pave the way for an increase in knowledge everywhere." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Anyone who writes about science must know about science, which cuts down competition considerably." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Computers are better than we are at arithmetic, not because computers are so good at it, but because we are so bad at it." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Experimentation is the least arrogant method of gaining knowledge. The experimenter humbly asks a question of nature." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Facts are a heap of bricks and timber. It is only a successful theory that can convert the heap into a stately mansion." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"In mathematics, we say 'suppose' all the time and see if we can end up with something patently untrue or self-contradictory [...]" (Isaac Asimov, "Prelude to Foundation" 1988)
"It is hard to describe the exact route to scientific achievement, but a good scientist doesn't get lost as he travels it." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Physics is the basic science. One can easily argue that all other sciences are specialized aspects of physics." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Religion cannot object to science on moral grounds. The history of religious intolerance forbids it." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Religion considers the Universe deterministic and science considers it probabilistic - an important distinction." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Science in the service of humanity is technology, but lack of wisdom may make the service harmful."(Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Science must be taught well, if a student is to understand the coming decades he must live through."(Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Scientific apparatus offers a window to knowledge, but as they grow more elaborate, scientists spend ever more time washing the windows." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"There is very little flexibility in the behavior of the Universe. What it does once, it does again." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"What makes it so hard to organize the environment sensibly is that everything we touch is hooked up to everything else." (Isaac Asimov, "Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations", 1988)
"Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete." (Isaac Asimov, "The Relativity of Wrong", 1988)
"Scientific theories can always be improved and are improved. That is one of the glories of science. It is the authoritarian view of the Universe that is frozen in stone and cannot be changed, so that once it is wrong, it is wrong forever." (Isaac Asimov, "The Nearest Star", 1989)
"I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with. That, I think, is the secret of the Universe." (Isaac Asimov, "Essay 400: A Way of Thinking, "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", 1994)
"Science with all its faults has brought education and the arts to more people - a larger percentage - than has ever existed before science. In that respect it is science that is the great humanizer. And, if we are going to solve the problems that science has brought us, it will be done by science and in no other way." (Isaac Asimov, "Essay 400: A Way of Thinking, "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", 1994)
"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence [...] has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all." (Isaac Asimov)
"Once we learn to expect theories to collapse and to be supplanted by more useful generalizations, the collapsing theory becomes not the gray remnant of a broken today, but the herald of a new and brighter tomorrow." (Isaac Asimov)
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