“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?”
“The Three Laws of Robotics:
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;
The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
“You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason---if you pick the proper postulates.”
“Fifty years," I hackneyed, "is a long time."
"Not when you're looking back at them," she said. "You wonder how they vanished so quickly.”
“Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict---its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself---what's the expression---ah, yes, 'not with a bang, but a whimper,' as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.”
“It's your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion.”
“Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.”
“... you just can't differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.”
“All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger.”
“There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.”
“You are the only one responsible for your own wants.”
“I, on the other hand, am a finished product. I absorb electrical energy directly and utilize it with an almost one hundred percent efficiency. I am composed of strong metal, am continuously conscious, and can stand extremes of environment easily. These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”
“The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans.”
“There is no Master but the Master,” he said, “and QT-1 is his prophet.”
“They recognize the Master, now that I have preached Truth to them. All the robots do.”
“It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research.”
“People say 'It's as plain as the noise on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone hold a mirror up to you?”
“You’ll have such proof as exists. You are the only one responsible for your own wants.”
“These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”
“Oh, hell! I can’t sleep!” “Neither can I! But I might as well try—as a matter of principle.” Twelve hours later, sleep was still just that—a matter of principle, unattainable in practice.”
“First of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
“And his idea of solid comfort was to be left in utter solitude for two or three hours.”
“Cada período del desarrollo humano, Susan, tiene su tipo particular de conflicto, sus problemas distintos que, aparentemente sólo pueden resolverse por la fuerza. Y jamás, por decepcionante que esto sea, la fuerza resuelve el problema. En su lugar, éste persiste a través de una serie de conflictos y se desvanece por sí solo... ¿cómo dice la frase?, no con un estallido, sino con su susurro, a medida que el ambiente económico y social cambia. Y entonces, nuevo problema y nueva serie de guerras. Un ciclo, al parecer, sin fin.”
“The first step in cooking rabbit stew is catching the rabbit.”
“Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
“-La humanidad ha perdido todo control sobre su futuro
-No lo ha tenido jamás, en realidad.Estuvo siempre a merced de unas fuerzas económicas y sociológicas que no entendía, de los caprichos del clima y de los azares de la guerra.”
“The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: “No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.”
“George Weston, after all was only a man—poor thing—and his wife made full use of every device which a clumsier and more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to fear.”
“Al parecer, cree más en la curación que en el castigo de los criminales. Considero esto muy significativo.”
“The real point of the matter is that what we call a ‘wrong datum’ is one which is inconsistent with all other known data. It is our only criterion of right and wrong.”
“I want you to know that this is what happens when you meet the person you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with: that restless feeling dissolves like butter.”
“Once there was a girl named Riley, the story began. Her heart was a secret garden, its stone walls cracked and weathered. And it was hungry. p160”
“For example, basil is great for curing stomach cramps, and sage is good for anxiety or depression.”
“Buying her shit only pissed her off, and trust me, I’d had my people filling her wardrobe with designer shoes and dresses. She gave them all away to the homeless shelter down the street like they weren’t worth a dime. In fact, there’s a crazy homeless woman in downtown Boston walking around in a Stella McCartney suit and a pair of Jimmy Choo’s, yelling at traffic lights that she was the real Messiah. Yeah.”
“New York has so much history, but everyone in it just wants to know about the future.”
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.