“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
“She had never yet encountered a personage so exotic, and she always felt more at ease in the presence of anything strange. It was the usual things of life that filled her with silent rage; which was natural enough inasmuch as, to her vision, almost everything that was usual was inqiuitous.”
― Henry James, quote from The Bostonians
“They use the pretext of avoiding war, to make you swallow any kind of peace, said Paul. They use the pretext of a revolution to involve us in any kind of war, said Jardinet.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, quote from The Blood of Others
“—Shush sweet baby, I said, so tired, and mixed her gripe water with whiskey and dill weed, but it did no good, so I seen now why lullabies was all about cradles falling from trees, oh dear, when the wind blows, down will come baby, whoops too bad, but at least it’s quiet.”
― Kate Manning, quote from My Notorious Life
“Whether it means prizing the value of lessons learned, building games into your creative process, or getting gifts upon certain milestones of achievement, self-derived rewards make a big difference…You cannot ignore or completely escape the deeply ingrained short-term reward system within you. But you can become aware of what really motivates you and then tweak your incentives to sustain your long-term pursuits.”
― quote from Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
“The way he had always tried to tell her he loved her when she least expected it.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from Everything and the Moon
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.