(source) |
Isaac Asimov
(2 Jan 1920 - 6 Apr 1992)
|
Isaac Asimov Quotes on Life (28 quotes)
>> Click for 266 Science Quotes by Isaac Asimov
>> Click for Isaac Asimov Quotes on | Belief | Biography | Creationist | Death | Fear | Ignorance | Knowledge | Science | Scientist | Solution | Theory | Understanding | Universe |
>> Click for 266 Science Quotes by Isaac Asimov
>> Click for Isaac Asimov Quotes on | Belief | Biography | Creationist | Death | Fear | Ignorance | Knowledge | Science | Scientist | Solution | Theory | Understanding | Universe |
[Learning is] the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there’s a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it’s time to die, and that will come to all of us, there’ll be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, that you had learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. I mean, there’s only this universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And, while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least do that much. What a tragedy to just pass through and get nothing out of it.
— Isaac Asimov
A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension.
I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science-in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow.
In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze.
I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the “growing edge;” the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead.
But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning.
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. “If I have seen further than other men,” said Isaac Newton, “it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science-in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up at the very center of the glow.
In a lifetime of being wrong at many a point, I was never more wrong. It was I, not he, who was wandering in the periphery. It was he, not I, who lived in the blaze.
I had fallen victim to the fallacy of the “growing edge;” the belief that only the very frontier of scientific advance counted; that everything that had been left behind by that advance was faded and dead.
But is that true? Because a tree in spring buds and comes greenly into leaf, are those leaves therefore the tree? If the newborn twigs and their leaves were all that existed, they would form a vague halo of green suspended in mid-air, but surely that is not the tree. The leaves, by themselves, are no more than trivial fluttering decoration. It is the trunk and limbs that give the tree its grandeur and the leaves themselves their meaning.
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before. “If I have seen further than other men,” said Isaac Newton, “it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”
— Isaac Asimov
And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
— Isaac Asimov
As far as the meaning of life in general, or in the abstract, as far as I can see, there is none. If all of life were suddenly to disappear from earth and anywhere else it may exist, or if none had ever formed in the first place, I think the Universe would continue to exist without perceptible change. However, it is always possible for an individual to invest his own life with meaning that he can find significant. He can so order his life that he may find as much beauty and wisdom in it as he can, and spread as much of that to others as possible.
— Isaac Asimov
Considering the difficulties represented by the lack of water, by extremes of temperature, by the full force of gravity unmitigated by the buoyancy of water, it must be understood that the spread to land of life forms that evolved to meet the conditions of the ocean represented the greatest single victory won by life over the inanimate environment.
— Isaac Asimov
Everything about microscopic life is terribly upsetting. How can things so small be so important?
— Isaac Asimov
Background photo copyright Thomas Nugent (cc-by-sa/2.0) (source)
Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live without them.
— Isaac Asimov
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
I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn't, I would die.
— Isaac Asimov
Macro photo of bee by Forest Wander (cc by-sa 2.0) (source)
I’m tired of that stupid phrase, “the birds and the bees” which is supposed to represent “the facts of life” or the beginnings of the sex instruction of the young. … Well for heaven’s sake, has anyone ever tried to explain sex by talking about the birds and the bees? What have the birds and the bees to do with it? IT’S THE BEES AND THE FLOWERS. Will you get that through your head? IT’S THE BEES AND THE FLOWERS. The bee travels to one flower and picks up pollen from the stamens. The pollen contains the male sex cells of the plant. The bee then travels to another flower (of the same species) and the pollen brushes off onto the pistil, which contains the female sex cells of the plant. … Now in the human being … we don’t rely on bees to do it for us.
— Isaac Asimov
If trouble were as easy to get out of as into—life would be one sweet song.
— Isaac Asimov
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
— Isaac Asimov
It is only at the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs that the deep sea, hitherto bare of organisms, was finally invaded by life.
— Isaac Asimov
John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
— Isaac Asimov
Life is a journey, but don’t worry, you’ll find a parking spot at the end.
— Isaac Asimov
Life is one thing—we all lose it sooner or later. Sanity is quite another.
— Isaac Asimov
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
— Isaac Asimov
Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.
— Isaac Asimov
Life would be unbearable if death were not worse yet.
— Isaac Asimov
Of all extinct life-forms, dinosaurs are the most popular. Why that should be is not clear.
— Isaac Asimov
Science can be introduced to children well or poorly. If poorly, children can be turned away from science; they can develop a lifelong antipathy; they will be in a far worse condition than if they had never been introduced to science at all.
— Isaac Asimov
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. It is better to know—even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction—than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
— Isaac Asimov
The earth is a book in which we read not only its history, but the history of the living things it has borne.
— Isaac Asimov
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
— Isaac Asimov
The significant chemicals of living tissue are rickety and unstable, which is exactly what is needed for life.
— Isaac Asimov
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. 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
There is no duress like one’s own conscience and it is that which makes life so needlessly bitter.
— Isaac Asimov
What can be more important than the science of life to any intelligent being who has the good fortune to be alive?
— Isaac Asimov
Background photo copyright Thomas Nugent (cc-by-sa/2.0) (source)
Macro photo of bee by Forest Wander (cc by-sa 2.0) (source)
See also:
- 2 Jan - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Asimov's birth.
- Isaac Asimov - context of quote “It’s the bees and the flowers.” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Isaac Asimov - context of quote “It’s the bees and the flowers.” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery, by Isaac Asimov. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Isaac Asimov.