Айзек Азимов цитаты

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„Если читать Библию внимательно, то убедишься в правоте атеизма.“

„Если врач скажет, что мне осталось жить пять минут, я не буду рвать на себе волосы. Просто я стану печатать на машинке немного быстрее.“

„В отличие от шахмат, в жизни игра продолжается и после мата.“

„Ни одно здравое решение не может быть принято без принятия во внимание не только мира, как он есть, но и мира, каким он будет.“

„Люди на земле должны дружить. Не думаю, что можно заставить всех людей любить друг друга, но я желал бы уничтожить ненависть между людьми.“

„Замечательное чувство — знать, что ты сам строишь мир.“

„Современная теория создания мира согласно Библии звучит так, будто бы ее создатель сидел и пил целую ночь.“

„Имхотеп был первым архитектором. Он предпринял строительство мастабы для Джосера. Это было первое большое каменное сооружение во всем мире.“

„Бюрократия разрастается, чтобы поспеть за потребностями разрастающейся бюрократии.“

„Каждый волен верить, во что он хочет. Я только против того, чтобы заставлять всех верить во что-то одно.“

„Никогда не позволяйте морали удерживать вас от правильных поступков.“

„Я уверен: книгу ничто не заменит в будущем, так же как ничто не могло заменить её в прошлом.“

„Существует так много способов убивать время, что некоторыми приходится жертвовать.“

„Предрассудки обычно правят людьми при отсутствии достоверных знаний.“

„Психиатр приветствует психиатра: «Вы в полном порядке, а я?»“

„Самая волнующая фраза, какую можно услышать в науке, — фраза, возвещающая о новых открытиях, — вовсе не «Эврика!», а «Вот забавно…».“

„Лучше знать, даже если знание очень скоро повлечет за собой гибель, чем обрести вечную жизнь ценой тусклого скотского непонимания вселенной, которая невидимо для нас бурлит во всем своем волшебстве.“

„Существует только один светильник науки, и зажечь его в каком-либо месте — значит зажечь везде.“

„Первое правило диетики: если это вкусно, значит, это вредно для вас.“

„Пытаюсь ли я найти Бога? Бог умнее меня. Пусть попробует найти меня сам.“

„Существует единый свет науки, и зажечь его где-либо означает зажечь его везде.“

„Бессонница — это когда не можешь спать, даже когда уже пора просыпаться.“

„Предположим, что мы достаточно мудры, чтобы узнавать и знать, однако еще недостаточно мудры, чтобы контролировать свой процесс познания и сами знания, а потому используем их себе во вред. Даже если и так, знание все равно лучше, чем невежество.“

„Мух гораздо больше, чем людей.“

„Эй, это не летающая тарелка! Это моя задница!“

„Я думаю, индивидуальность важнее интеллекта.“

“It’s one thing to have guts; it’s another to be crazy.”

“You are a valuable subject, Brodrig. You always suspect far more than is necessary, and I have but to take half your suggested precautions to be utterly safe.”

“He believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don’t believe in it at all.”

“I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters… In between two of the segments she asked me…"But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?" I said, "Type faster." This was widely quoted, but the "six months" was changed to "six minutes," which bothered me. It's "six months."”

“Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues.”

“Miniaturization doesn't actually make sense unless you miniaturize the very atoms of which matter is composed. Otherwise a tiny brain in a man the size of an insect, composed of normal atoms, is composed of too few atoms for the miniaturized man to be any more intelligent than the ant. Also, miniaturizing atoms is impossible according to the rules of quantum mechanics.”

“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.”

“The Law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.”

“Science fiction offers its writers chances of embarrassment that no other form of fiction does.”

“It is a mistake,” he said, “to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort. We know that well enough from our experience in the environmental crisis of the twentieth century.”

“That is the most stupid thing yet. I tell you that I could despair of human intelligence when I see what can exist in men’s minds.”

“For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat’s are really deadly.”

“The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested.”

“Science Digest asked me to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind and write an article for them on the science it contained. I saw the picture and was appalled. I remained appalled even after a doctor’s examination had assured me that no internal organs had been shaken loose by its ridiculous soundwaves. (If you can’t be good, be loud, some say, and Close Encounters was very loud.) … Hollywood must deal with large audiences, most of whom are utterly unfamiliar with good science fiction. It has to bend to them, meet them at least half-way. Fully appreciating that, I could enjoy Planet of the Apes and Star Wars. Star Wars was entertainment for the masses and did not try to be anything more. Leave your sophistication at the door, get into the spirit, and you can have a fun ride. … Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions, or reading a bad book for the dirty parts. Optical wizardry is something a movie can do that a book can’t but it is no substitute for a story, for logic, for meaning. It is ornamentation, not substance. In fact, whenever a science fiction picture is praised overeffusively for its special effects, I know it’s a bad picture. Is that all they can find to talk about?”

“There’s nothing like deduction. We’ve determined everything about our problem but the solution.”

“At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past.”

“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.”

“I consider one of the most important duties of any scientist the teaching of science to students and to the general public.”

“The dullness of fact is the mother of fiction.”

“There is no way of being almost funny or mildly funny or fairly funny or tolerably funny. You are either funny or not funny and there is nothing in between. And usually it is the writer who thinks he is funny and the reader who thinks he isn't.”

“Well, then, arrest him. You can accuse him of something or other afterward.”

“If an interaction is too weak to be detectable or to exert influence in any way, then by any operational definition, it doesn’t exist.”

“There was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman. He couldn’t help that. That was the result of a childhood immersed in an atmosphere of bigotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature. Then you left it and saw it for what it was when you looked back.”

“To be sure, the Bible contains the direct words of God. How do we know? The Moral Majority says so. How do they know? They say they know and to doubt it makes you an agent of the Devil or, worse, a Lbr-l Dm-cr-t. And what does the Bible textbook say? Well, among other things it says the earth was created in 4004 BC (Not actually, but a Moral Majority type figured that out three and a half centuries ago, and his word is also accepted as inspired.) The sun was created three days later. The first male was molded out of dirt, and the first female was molded, some time later, out of his rib. As far as the end of the universe is concerned, the Book of Revelation (6:13-14) says: "And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." … Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.”

“The fact that the general incidence of leukemia has doubled in the last two decades may be due, partly, to the increasing use of x-rays for numerous purposes. The incidence of leukemia in doctors, who are likely to be so exposed, is twice that of the general public. In radiologists … the incidence is ten times greater.”

“I have always dealt with economic forces, rather than philosophic forces, but you can't split history into neat little non-overlapping divisions. For instance, religions tend to accumulate wealth when successful and that eventually tends to distort the economic development of a society.”

“Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing.”

“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!”

“A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!”