Isaac Asimov Quotes

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

A man remains ignorant because he loves ignorance, and chooses ignorant thoughts; a man becomes wise because he loves wisdom and chooses wise thoughts.

Read in order to live.

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.

Travel brings wisdom only to the wise. It renders the ignorant more ignorant than ever.

Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.

The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise.

Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish.

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

For life is a fire burning along a piece of string--or is it a fuse to a powder keg which we call God?--and the string is what we don't know, our Ignorance, and the trail of ash, which, if a gust of wind does not come, keeps the structure of the string, is History, man's Knowledge, but it is dead, and when the fire has burned up all the string, then man's Knowledge will be equal to God's Knowledge and there won't be any fire, which is Life. Or if the string leads to a powder keg, then there will be a terrific blast of fire, and even the trail of ash will be blown completely away.

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

The difference between a learned man and an ignorant one is the same as that between a living man and a corpse.

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind.

Truth burns up error.

You shall find books and sermons everywhere, in the land and in the sea, in the earth and in the skies, and you shall learn from every living beast, and bird, and fish, and insect, and from every useful or useless plant that springs from the ground.

The sure way of knowing nothing about life is to try to make oneself useful.

Philosophy, the love of Wisdom, is at the very bottom defence against the incomprehensible.

That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

He who learns, and makes no use of his learning, is a beast of burden with a load of books. Does the ass comprehend whether he carries on his back a library or a bundle of faggots?

When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.

Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men.

One fool will deny more truth in half an hour than a wise man can prove in seven years.

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know the hotter you get.

One who never asks either knows everything or nothing.