# Isaac Asimov's most famous quotes

From the First Law of Robotics and 'violence is the last refuge of the incompetent' to the 'cult of ignorance': Isaac Asimov's lines with their source, from the Foundation books to his memoirs, plus the 'That's funny…' one, which has no solid source.

- 3 votes · 12 items
- May 22, 2023 · Joana Pinto Mendes
- https://even.best/en/l/4660/isaac-asimov-s-most-famous-quotes

## Top 12

1. **A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — First Law of Robotics, in the story 'Runaround' (1942), later in I, Robot.
2. **Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Foundation (1951), Salvor Hardin.
3. **Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Foundation (1951).
4. **You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason, if you pick the proper postulates.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — I, Robot (1950).
5. **The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988).
6. **There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — 'A Cult of Ignorance', Newsweek, 21 January 1980.
7. **Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — 'Science Past, Science Future' (1975).
8. **Ideas are cheap. It's only what you do with them that counts.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — 'The Secrets of the Universe' (1989).
9. **If anyone can be considered the greatest writer who ever lived, it is Shakespeare.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Asimov's Chronology of the World (1991).
10. **'Type faster.'** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Asimov Laughs Again (1992): his answer to Barbara Walters on what he'd do with six months to live; he complained people quoted it as 'six minutes'.
11. **The most exciting phrase to hear in science is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny…'** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Attributed: it turns up in 1987 in the Fortune computer program, with no source in his work.
12. **Writing is hard work. The fact that I love doing it doesn't make it less hard work.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — In Joy Still Felt (1980), memoirs.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.