“Where is the world whose people don't prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty?”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“We mythologists know very well that myths and legends contain borrowings, moral lessons, nature cycles, and a hundred other distorting influences, and we labor to cut them away and get to what might be a kernel of truth. In fact, these same techniques must be applied to the most sober histories, for no one writes the clear and apparent truth—if such a thing can even be said to exist.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“Presumably, such is the folly of human beings, the prospects of intellectual suicide might not stop them from indulging their hatred,”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“There are always individuals who pit their minds against the general modes of thought and who are arrogant enough to feel that they alone are right and that the many are wrong.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment."
"Surely," said Pelorat, "such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don't think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive."
Bliss said, "I don't have your pleasant faith in human reason, Pel. It seems to me to be quite conceivable that when a planetary society consists of Isolates, local and even individual concerns might easily by allowed to overcome planetary concerns.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
“That is beside the point. If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.” Trevize”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Earth
Isaac Asimov
Born place: in Petrovichi, Russian Federation
Born date January 2, 1920
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“Yet to define genes by the diseases they cause is about as absurd as defining organs of the body by the diseases they get: livers are there to cause cirrhosis, hearts to cause heart attacks and brains to cause strokes. It is a measure, not of our knowledge but of our ignorance that this is the way the genome catalogues read. It is literally true that the only thing we know about some genes is that their malfunction causes a particular disease. This is a pitifully small thing to know about a gene, and a terribly misleading one. It leads to the dangerous shorthand that runs as follows: ‘X has got the Wolf-Hirschhorn gene.’ Wrong. We all have the Wolf-Hirschhorn gene, except, ironically, people who have Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. Their sickness is caused by the fact that the gene is missing altogether. In the rest of us, the gene is a positive, not a negative force. The sufferers have the mutation, not the gene.”
― Matt Ridley, quote from Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
“Each smallest act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil. —This Momentous Day, H.R. White”
― Dean Koontz, quote from From the Corner of His Eye
“If you tell someone ten times that you don’t want to talk to him, you are talking to them—nine more times than you wanted to.”
― Gavin de Becker, quote from The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
“You asked me, 'Do you call this living?" And I answer: Yes, it is exactly what I call living. And in my best hypothetical sense, I envy it very much.”
― Frederik Pohl, quote from Gateway
“¿Quién de nosotros sabría admirar a los grandes genios, si en la escuela no se le hubiese puesto bien en la cabeza que son grandes genios?”
― Witold Gombrowicz, quote from Ferdydurke
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What-the-Dickens: Th...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
