“People who don't expect justice don't have to suffer disappointment.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“The robot had no feelings, only positronic surges that mimicked those feelings. (And perhaps human beings had no feelings, only neuronic surges that were interpreted as feelings.)”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“A knotty puzzle may hold a scientist up for a century, when it may be that a colleague has the solution already and is not even aware of the puzzle that it might solve.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“Meaning well is a poor defense,”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“Are there Laws of Humanics as there are Laws of Robotics? How many Laws of Humanics might there be and how can they be expressed mathematically? I don’t know. “Perhaps, though, there may come a day when someone will work out the Laws of Humanics and then be able to predict the broad strokes of the future, and know what might be in store for humanity, instead of merely guessing as I do, and know what to do to make things better, instead of merely speculating. I dream sometimes of founding a mathematical science which I think of as ‘psychohistory,’ but I know I can’t and I fear no one ever will.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“You may uncover more and, eventually, what seems altogether a mystery to us now may unfold and become plain.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“I grow grandiose, which is a good sign I should become prosaic.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“ ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Is that it, Daneel?” Daneel paused, then said, “I am not certain what is meant by the smell of a rose, but if a rose on Earth is the common flower that is called a rose on Aurora, and if by its ‘smell’ you mean a property that can be detected, sensed, or measured by human beings, then surely calling a rose by another sound-combination—and holding all else equal—would not affect the smell or any other of its intrinsic properties.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“Here were the same long cold bare corridors, the same lowest common denominator of design and decoration, with every light source designed so as to irritate as few people as possible and to please just as few.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“To Baley, it seemed not that the Aurorans were growing more humane in their attitude out of a liking for the humane, but that they were denying the robotic nature of the objects in order to remove the discomfort of having to recognize the fact that the human beings were dependent upon objects of artificial intelligence.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“He would have to ask questions constantly, take nothing for granted. There would be so many opportunities to miss the obvious, so many chances to misunderstand, so many ways of taking the wrong path. 11”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The Robots of Dawn
“I mean, you can pretend up to a certain point that the world has infinite resources and that it's an infinite wastebasket-but at some point you're going to run into the reality, which is that that isn't true.”
― Noam Chomsky, quote from Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
“After all, one does not scream at lesbians in Doc Martens unless one wants to receive a penis kicking.”
― T.J. Klune, quote from Tell Me It's Real
“I will destroy you. No matter how long it takes, no matter what it costs me. I won’t sleep, I won’t eat. I won’t do anything but plot your downfall. I will mow down your men like they’re weeds. I’ll kill so many of them so viciously, so brutally, so horribly that no one will dare to work for you. And sooner or later, I’ll get you too.”
― Jennifer Estep, quote from Spider’s Revenge
“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.”
― Aristotle, quote from Poetics
“The purification of the Soul is simply to allow it to be alone; it is pure when it keeps no company.”
― Plotinus, quote from The Enneads
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.