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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index A > Isaac Asimov Quotes > Universe

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Isaac Asimov
(2 Jan 1920 - 6 Apr 1992)

Russian-American writer and biochemist who was a prolific author and editor of science fiction and non-fiction.


Isaac Asimov Quotes on Universe (18 quotes)

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“Any specialty, if important, is too important to be left to the specialists.” After all, the specialist cannot function unless he concentrates more or less entirely on his specialty and, in doing so, he will ignore the vast universe lying outside and miss important elements that ought to help guide his judgment. He therefore needs the help of the nonspecialist, who, while relying on the specialist for key information, can yet supply the necessary judgment based on everything else… Science, therefore, has become too important to be left to the scientists.
— Isaac Asimov
In 'The Fascination of Science', The Roving Mind (1983), 123. Asimov begins by extending a quote by George Clemenceau: “War is too important to be left to the generals.”
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[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
'Isaac Asimov Speaks' with Bill Moyers in The Humanist (Jan/Feb 1989), 49. Reprinted in Carl Howard Freedman (ed.), Conversations with Isaac Asimov (2005), 139.
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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
In a book proposal for The Meaning of Life edited by Hugh S. Moorhead, 1989.
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I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.
— Isaac Asimov
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I’m sure that science can’t ever explain everything and I can give you the reasons for that decision … 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
In It’s Been a Good Life (2009), 258, cited as from I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994), 481.
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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
In Asimov on Physics (1976), 141. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 279.
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It is quite possible that mathematics was invented in the ancient Middle East to keep track of tax receipts and grain stores. How odd that out of this should come a subtle scientific language that can effectively describe and predict the most arcane aspects of the Universe.
— Isaac Asimov
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 265.
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It is tempting to wonder if our present universe, large as it is and complex though it seems, might not be merely the result of a very slight random increase in order over a very small portion of an unbelievably colossal universe which is virtually entirely in heat-death. Perhaps we are merely sliding down a gentle ripple that has been set up, accidently and very temporarily, in a quiet pond, and it is only the limitation of our own infinitesimal range of viewpoint in space and time that makes it seem to ourselves that we are hurtling down a cosmic waterfall of increasing entropy, a waterfall of colossal size and duration.
— Isaac Asimov
(1976). In Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 331.
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Naturally, some intriguing thoughts arise from the discovery that the three chief particles making up matter—the proton, the neutron, and the electron—all have antiparticles. Were particles and antiparticles created in equal numbers at the beginning of the universe? If so, does the universe contain worlds, remote from ours, which are made up of antiparticles?
— Isaac Asimov
In The Intelligent Man's Guide to the Physical Sciences (1960, 1968), 222. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 138.
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Religion considers the Universe deterministic and science considers it probabilistic—an important distinction.
— Isaac Asimov
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 221.
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Science doesn’t purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It’s a system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.
— Isaac Asimov
'Isaac Asimov Speaks' with Bill Moyers in The Humanist (Jan/Feb 1989), 49. Reprinted in Carl Howard Freedman (ed.), Conversations with Isaac Asimov (2005), 143-144. Bill Moyers asked “What’s real knowledge?” Asimov replied, “Well, we can’t be absolutely certain.” He continued answering as in the quote above.
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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 universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal; and immediate care; a world in which you are His peculiar concern.
— Isaac Asimov
The 'Threat' of Creationism. In Ashley Montagu (ed.), Science and Creationism (1984), 192.
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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
Essay, 'The Nearest Star', The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Oct 1989), collected in The Secret of the Universe (1991), 82.
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Since the Universe is defined as including all that exists, it is useless to ask what lies beyond it.
— Isaac Asimov
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 328.
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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
Widely seen on the Web, but always without citation, so regard attribution as uncertain. Webmaster has not yet found reliable verification. Contact Webmaster if you know a primary print source.
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The Principia Mathematica developed an overall scheme of the universe, one far more elegant and enlightening than any the ancients had devised. And the Newtonian scheme was based on a set of assumptions, so few and so simple, developed through so clear and so enticing a line of mathematics that conservatives could scarcely find the heart and courage to fight it.
— Isaac Asimov
In Entry 231, 'Newton, Sir Isaac', Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (2nd rev ed., 1982), 152.
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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 people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern “knowledge” is that it is wrong.
The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. “If I am the wisest man,” said Socrates, “it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.
My answer to him was, “John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
— Isaac Asimov
In The Relativity of Wrong (1989), 214.
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There is very little flexibility in the behavior of the Universe. What it does once, it does again.
— Isaac Asimov
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 167.
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Isaac Asimov quote It’s the bees and the flowers.
Macro photo of bee by Forest Wander (cc by-sa 2.0) (source)
Isaac Asimov quote: Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live witho
Background photo copyright Thomas Nugent (cc-by-sa/2.0) (source)

See also:

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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