“Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power, it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Pyscho-history dealt not with man, but with man-masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball. The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“For a wise man, I have been told, once said, ‘Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate in empty phrases.’ But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“I am afraid a monster is grown that will devour all of us. Yet we must fight him.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Married life had taught him the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“I'll take that challenge. It's a dead hand against a living will.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors’ time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me,” he said, “then I would say this lady can not exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was “system,” and indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was “industry”, indecision when right was “caution”, and blind stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“After all, the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no
change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is
theirs.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“To a thoughtful biographer, [Ebling Mis's house] was "the symbolization of a retreat from a non-academic reality", a society columnist gushed silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder", a University Ph.D called it brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized", a non-university friend said, "good for a drink anytime and you can put your feet on the sofa", and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for color, spoke of the "rooky, down-to-earth, no-nonsense living quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, balding Ebling Mis".
To Bayta, who thought of no audience but herself at the moment, and who had the advantage of first-hand information, it was merely sloppy.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“I’m being accused of modesty, a horrible and thoroughly unnatural crime.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“The thanks of a weak one are but of little value," he muttered, "but you have them, for truly, in this past week, little but scraps have come my way- and for all my body is small, yet is my appetite unseemly great.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“...centuries would yet pass before the mighty works of fifty generations of humans would decay past use. Only the declining powers of men, themselves, rendered them useless now.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“You’re surrounded by people in the waking period, and you feel their eyes and their hopes on you. You can’t stand up under it. In the sleep period, you’re free.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“The clown’s eyes sidled towards her, then drew away quickly. “But they kept me away from you earlier-and, on my word, you may laugh, but I was lonely for missing friendship.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“He’s but a windlet that blows the dust about my ankles. There is another that I flee, and he is a storm that sweeps the worlds aside and throws them plunging at each other.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Excellence, he is known as the Mule. He is spoken of little, in a factual sense, but I have gathered the scraps and fragments of knowledge and winnowed out the most probable of them. He is apparently a man of neither birth nor standing. His father, unknown. His mother, dead in childbirth. His upbringing, that of a vagabond. His education, that of the tramp worlds, and the backwash alleys of space. He has no name other than that of the Mule, a name reportedly applied by himself to himself, and signifying, by popular explanation, his immense physical strength, and stubbornness of purpose.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Si utilizara el ingenio que los buenos espíritus me dieron, entonces diría que esta dama no puede existir, pues ¿qué hombre en su sano juicio llamaría al sueño realidad? Sin embargo yo preferiría no ser cuerdo y prestar crédito a mis ojos hechizados”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“From the radiating point of Siwenna, the forces of the Empire reached out cautiously into the black unknown of the Periphery. Giant ships passed the vast distances that separated the vagrant stars at the Galaxy’s rim, and felt their way around the outermost edge of Foundation influence.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Were I to use the wits the Spirits gave me, then I would say this lady cannot exist cannot exist - for what sane man would hold dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Were I to use the wits the Spirits gave me, then I would say this lady cannot exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
“Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly complete mental discruption results. Mild cases - hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced cases - madness and suicide.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Foundation and Empire
Isaac Asimov
Born place: in Petrovichi, Russian Federation
Born date January 2, 1920
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“I have a habit of reading a book for at least 15 minutes a day, and whenever I finish a chapter, I immediately go over to Evernote and type out some notes on what I read. When I do this the Outline Method is my system of choice. While”
― Thomas Frank, quote from 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)
“On most guys, Hale's smile would have looked sheepish. On him, it was so roguishly charming that Kat's heart actually skipped a beat.”
― Ally Carter, quote from The Grift of the Magi
“You can get used to eating breakfast with a man in a fedora. You can get used to anything, my mother was in the habit of saying.”
― Anne Carson, quote from Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
“Hot, bright heat filled him like some ecstatic poison, and Hartan's pony shied in terror as a wordless howl burst from his throat. His dripping ears were flat to his skull, fire crackled in his brown eyes, his huge sword blurred in a whirring figure eight before him, and the brigand running at him gawked in sudden panic. The raider's feet skidded in mud as he tried to brake, but it was far too late. He was face-to-face with the worst nightmare of any Norfressan, a Horse Stealer hradani in the grip of the Rage, and a thunderbolt of steel split him from crown to navel.”
― David Weber, quote from Oath of Swords
“After that, we don’t talk, instead we get hammered. Shot after shot we down, chasing each one with a Little Debbie snack. Before we know it, we’re hanging on to the bar counter floating around in a sugar and alcohol coma, just the way I like it.
“There’s my girl,” Racer shouts as he topples off his stool and onto the floor, laughing hysterically. Georgie stops in her tracks and looks over at Emma, who’s standing next to her, both holding two boxes of Little Debbie snacks each.
“Emmmmmmmma,” Tucker drags out, waving his glass in the air. “You brought the snacks.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Emma mutters as she approaches us.
I point to my mouth and say, “Feed me. Daddy needs sugar.”
Racer is beside me, tangled in the pegs of his bar stool, still laughing. “Did you bring Oatmeal Pies, George? Please tell me you have the pies.”
“Uh, I think you’ve had enough for tonight,” she says, looking down at her boyfriend.
“Never!” Racer struggles to get up and finally knocks the chair over to free himself. “Fucking bitch chair, digging into me with its claws.” Talking to the stool directly he says, “I’m taken, warm someone else’s ass.”
“He’s going to propose, chair, leave him alone,” Tucker announces, causing me to cringe.
“Dude, don’t say it out loud.” I punch Tucker in the shoulder. “Georgie is right there.” All three of us turn to Georgie, who’s shaking her head in humor. Hopefully.
“I’ll take Aaron,” Emma tells Georgie. “Seems like Racer is more of a handful.”
“Hell yeah, I am.” Racer stumbles while cupping his crotch. “A giant handful.”
Georgie rolls her eyes. “And that’s our cue to leave.”
“But we didn’t eat our snacks.”
“Seems like you had enough.” Georgie grabs Racer by the hand. “Come on.”
As they walk away, Racer asks, “Want to have sex in the car?”
“Not even a little.”
“Here, you two, you can have your boxes of snacks.” Emma hands Tucker and me both a box of Oatmeal Pies that we clutch to our chests.
“You’re the best,” I admit.
“She is, isn’t she?” Tucker says. “I love her so fucking hard. Best wife ever.”
She pulls on both of our hands to get us moving. “She wins wife of the year award,” I announce. “Best wife goes to Emma. Can we get a round of applause?”
Tucker breaks open his Oatmeal Pies and starts spraying them like confetti. “Emma. Emma. Emma.” He chants, getting the three other patrons in the bar to join in.
I pump my fist as well, forgetting everything from earlier. I knew I could count on my guys.
“Emma. Emma. Emma . . .”
And then, everything fades to black. Emotions and feelings are non-existent as I pass out, just the way I like it. Just the way I need it.”
― Meghan Quinn, quote from The Other Brother
City of God
The Postmortal
Parzival
All My Sons
A Trick of the Light
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