Isaac Asimov Quotes

Not to unlearn what you have learned is the most necessary kind of learning.

The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it:; once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth.

The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.

To understand a new idea, break an old habit.

Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning.

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be?

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Get into the habit of imagining an alternate scenario. By posing such 'imagine if' questions... we can distance ourselves from the frames, cues, anchors and rhetoric that might be affecting us.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.

You have to get a little untrapped from too much prior knowledge.

I felt the need to unlearn my formal education.

We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.

I really had no religious upbringing, which is unusual. But I think it saved me, because when I found the theory that I wanted to follow, I did not have anything to unlearn.

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

Your belief systems limit your reality to a sub-set of the solution space that does not contain the answer.

In order to learn, one must change one's mind.

You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.

The reason why new concepts in any branch of science are hard to grasp is always the same; contemporary scientists try to picture the new concept in terms of ideas which existed before.

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.

There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect... What is philosophy today... if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?

I don't think you ever learn just one thing. At some point you start unlearning things. I have been working hard to unlearn everything I know.