“A violência é o último refúgio do incompetente.”
Variante: A agressão é o último refúgio do incompetente.
Isaac Asimov:
343
citações
30
Curtidas
Isaac Asimov Frases famosas
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What have we to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!
Past, present, and future - página 65, Isaac Asimov - Prometheus Books, 1987, ISBN 0879753935, 9780879753931 - 374 páginas
“Na vida, ao contrário do xadrez, o jogo continua depois do xeque-mate.”
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
Fantastic voyage II: destination brain: Volume 2 - página 275, Isaac Asimov - Grafton, 1988, ISBN 0586200258, 9780586200254 - 480 páginas
“Nunca deixe o seu sentido moral impedi-lo de fazer o que está certo.”
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
The foundation trilogy: three classics of science fiction - página 135, Doubleday science fiction, The Foundation Trilogy: Three Classics of Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov, Foundation series, Isaac Asimov, Editora Doubleday, 1951, 695 páginas
Variante: Nunca deixe seu senso moral impedir você de fazer o que é certo!
Citações de vida de Isaac Asimov
I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
citado em "Philosophy on the Go" - Página 222, Joey Green - Running Press, 2007, ISBN 0762428589, 9780762428588 - 272 páginas
Atribuídas
“A vida é agradavel. A morte é tranquila. O mau é a transição.”
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
citado em "Digital video transition analysis and detection" - Página 33, Wei Jyh Heng, King N. Ngan - World Scientific, 2002, ISBN 9812381856, 9789812381859 - 190 páginas
Atribuídas
“A vida é uma viagem, mas não se aflijam, no fim há sítio para estacionar.”
Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end.
citado em "Notes for a memoir: on Isaac Asimov, life, and writing" - página 35, Janet Asimov - Prometheus Books, 2006, ISBN 1591024056, 9781591024057 - 207 páginas
Atribuídas
Isaac Asimov frases e citações
“Apenas uma guerra é permitida à espécie humana: a guerra contra a extinção.”
There is only one war that the human species can now afford to fight and that is the war against extinction.
Life and time - página 245, Isaac Asimov - Doubleday, 1978, ISBN 0385146450, 9780385146456 - 273 páginas
“Se o conhecimento traz problemas, não é a ignorância que os resolve.”
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Asimov's guide to science - página 15, Isaac Asimov - Basic Books, 1972 - 945 páginas
Variante: Se o conhecimento pode criar problemas, não será através da ignorância que os resolveremos.
“Lida propriamente, a Bíblia é a força mais potente para o ateísmo já concebida.”
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
citado em "Holy Moses: Holy Writ Revisited" - Página 177, Joseph E. Guretzki - D. W. Friesen Sons, Limited, 2004, ISBN 1553830083, 9781553830085 - 402 páginas
Atribuídas
The price of freedom is indifference — and don't let anybody tell you otherwise, the universe is an extremely indifferent place.
Isaac Asimov's science fiction magazine: Volume 16,Edições 4-7 - página 48, Isaac Asimov - Davis Publications, 1992
“A liberdade não tem preço, a mera possibilidade de obtê-la já vale a pena.”
citado em O Homem Bicentenário
Outside intelligences, exploring the Solar System with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the Sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris.
View from a Height - página 227, Doubleday, 1963, 252 páginas
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamed up after being drunk all night.
muitas vezes atribuída como observação para National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) (1980) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.
The stars in their courses - página 36, Isaac Asimov - White Lion, 1974, ISBN 085617145X, 9780856171451 - 199 páginas
It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.
Quasar, quasar, burning bright - página 235, Isaac Asimov - Doubleday, 1978, ISBN 0385134649, 9780385134644 - 240 páginas
“Onde todas as respostas são possíveis, nenhuma resposta tem significado.”
Where any answer is possible, all answers are meaningless.
The road to infinity - página 170, Isaac Asimov - Doubleday, 1979, ISBN 038514962X, 9780385149624 - 217 páginas
“Eu não temo os computadores, temo a ausência deles”
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
citado em "Computers for business, a book of readings" - página 305, Hugh J. Watson, Archie B. Carroll - Business Publications ; Georgetown, Ont. : Irwin-Dorsey, 1980, ISBN 0256022895, 9780256022896 - 342 páginas
Atribuídas
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny ...'
citado em Proceedings of the ... session: Volume 36 - página 22, South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission - SOPAC Technical Secetariat, 1994
Atribuídas
“Essa gente que pensa que sabe tudo é uma grande maçada para nós que sabemos.”
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
como citado em "The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners" (2004) editado por Geoff Tibballs, p. 299
Atribuídas
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
citado em "Wit" - Página 236, Des MacHale - Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0740733303, 9780740733307 - 320 páginas
Atribuídas
The Gods Themselves
Esta tradução está aguardando revisão.
Está correcto?
Isaac Asimov: Frases em inglês
“We are meant to know, or we are amoebae.”
The New Hugo Winners: Award-winning Science Fiction Stories Vol. 1 (1989)<!-- Afterword to "Speech Sounds" -->, p. 215
General sources
Contexto: We are meant to know, or we are amoebae.
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. It is better to know — even if the knowledge endured only for the moment that comes before destruction — than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Contexto: If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
General sources
Fonte: "My Own View" in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1978) edited by Robert Holdstock;
Contexto: It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.
Fonte: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 8 “Farmwoman” section 5, p. 154
“It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus.”
Fonte: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 13 “Lieutenant and Clown”
Contexto: It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.
“That is what I want to be remembered for.”
Yours, Isaac Asimov (20 September 1973) <!-- page 329 -->
General sources
Contexto: What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for.
Fonte: The Roving Mind (1983), p. 43
Contexto: Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
"Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be."
“Those creatures from the para-Universe are trying to make themselves understood.”
Isaac Asimov
livro
The Gods Themselves
Section 1 “Against stupidity...”, Chapter 6, p. 12
The Gods Themselves (1972)
Contexto: "Don't finish, Pete. I've heard it all before. All I have to do is decipher the thinking of a non-human intelligence."
"A better-than-human intelligence. Those creatures from the para-Universe are trying to make themselves understood."
"That may be," sighed Bronowski, "but they're trying to do it through my intelligence, which is better than human I sometimes think, but not much. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, I lie awake and wonder if different intelligences can communicate at all; or, if I've had a particularly bad day, whether the phrase 'different intelligences' has meaning at all."
"It does," said Lamont savagely, his hands clearly bailing into fists within his lab coat pockets. "It means Hallam and me. It means that fool-hero, Dr. Frederick Hallam and me. We're different intelligences because when I talk to him he doesn't understand. His idiot face gets redder and his eyes bulge and his ears block. I'd say his mind stops functioning, but lack the proof of any other state from which it might stop."
“When the twenty-seven independent Trading Worlds”
Fonte: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 16 “Conference”
Contexto: “When the twenty-seven independent Trading Worlds, united only by their distrust of mother planet of the Foundation, concert an assembly among themselves, and each is big with a pride grown of its smallness, hardened by its own insularity and embittered by eternal danger — there are preliminary negotiations to be overcome of a pettiness sufficiently staggering to heart-sicken the most persevering.”
Fonte: The Roving Mind (1983), Ch. 25
Contexto: How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
“I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear.”
Introduction to Nemesis (1989)
General sources
Contexto: I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics — Well, they can do whatever they wish.
Part II, The Encyclopedists, section 2 (originally published as “Foundation” in Astounding (May 1942)
The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)
Contexto: “That insufferable, dull-witted donkey! That—”
Hardin broke in: “Not at all. He’s merely the product of his environment. He doesn’t understand much except that ‘I got a gun and you ain’t.’ ”
Isaac Asimov
livro
The Last Question
"Introduction" to The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973)<!-- , p. ix -->
The Last Question (1956)
Contexto: "The Last Question" is my personal favorite, the one story I made sure would not be omitted from this collection. Why is it my favorite? For one thing I got the idea all at once and didn't have to fiddle with it; and I wrote it in white-heat and scarcely had to change a word. This sort of thing endears any story to any writer.
Then, too, it has had the strangest effect on my readers. Frequently someone writes to ask me if I can give them the name of a story, which they think I may have written, and tell them where to find it. They don't remember the title but when they describe the story it is invariably "The Last Question". This has reached the point where I recently received a long-distance phone call from a desperate man who began, "Dr. Asimov, there's a story I think you wrote, whose title I can't remember—" at which point I interrupted to tell him it was "The Last Question" and when I described the plot it proved to be indeed the story he was after. I left him convinced I could read minds at a distance of a thousand miles.
No other story I have written has anything like this effect on my readers — producing at once an unshakeable memory of the plot and an unshakeable forgettery of the title and even author. I think it may be that the story fills them so frighteningly full, that they can retain none of the side-issues.
The New Hugo Winners: Award-winning Science Fiction Stories Vol. 1 (1989)<!-- Afterword to "Speech Sounds" -->, p. 215
General sources
Contexto: We are meant to know, or we are amoebae.
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. It is better to know — even if the knowledge endured only for the moment that comes before destruction — than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
“Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate — like dust.”
Fonte: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 17 “Gaia” section 5, p. 361
Contexto: “Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate — like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history — until it degenerates into fables.”
Pelorat said, “We historians are familiar with the process, Dom. There is a certain preference for the fable. The falsely dramatic drives out the truly dull.”
“We can all be members of the intellectual elite”
"A Cult of Ignorance", Newsweek (21 January 1980)
General sources
Contexto: I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning.
We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like "America's right to know" and, indeed, any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.
Fonte: I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994), p. 308
Contexto: He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
"Introduction" in The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973)
General sources
Contexto: !-- I must admit the title of this book gives me pause. Who says the enclosed stories are my ‘best’? Do I? Does the editor? Or some critic? Some reader? A general vote among the entire population of the world?
And whoever says it — can it be so? --> Can the word ‘best’ mean anything at all, except to some particular person in some particular mood? Perhaps not — so if we allow the word to stand as an absolute, you, or you, or perhaps you, may be appalled at omissions or inclusions or, never having read me before, may even be impelled to cry out, ‘Good heavens, are those his best?
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Contexto: If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Contexto: If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
“Science doesn't purvey absolute truth.”
Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas (21 October 1988); transcript http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/pdfs/woi%20asimov2.pdf (pages 5-6)
General sources
Contexto: Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.
General sources
Contexto: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
Free Inquiry (Spring 1982) <!-- p. 9 -->
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.”
Free Inquiry (Spring 1982) <!-- p. 9 -->
General sources
Contexto: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
Isaac Asimov
livro
The Gods Themselves
The Gods Themselves (1972)
Contexto: "Don't finish, Pete. I've heard it all before. All I have to do is decipher the thinking of a non-human intelligence."
"A better-than-human intelligence. Those creatures from the para-Universe are trying to make themselves understood."
"That may be," sighed Bronowski, "but they're trying to do it through my intelligence, which is better than human I sometimes think, but not much. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, I lie awake and wonder if different intelligences can communicate at all; or, if I've had a particularly bad day, whether the phrase 'different intelligences' has meaning at all."
"It does," said Lamont savagely, his hands clearly bailing into fists within his lab coat pockets. "It means Hallam and me. It means that fool-hero, Dr. Frederick Hallam and me. We're different intelligences because when I talk to him he doesn't understand. His idiot face gets redder and his eyes bulge and his ears block. I'd say his mind stops functioning, but lack the proof of any other state from which it might stop."
Section 1 “Against stupidity...”, Chapter 6, p. 12
As quoted in Isaac Asimov (1977) by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg, p. 165 http://books.google.com/books?id=8HCwAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Babies+are+the+enemies+of+the+human+race%22&dq=%22Babies+are+the+enemies+of+the+human+race%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i9ldVKqOM_jLsATbvYCgDA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAw
General sources
Contexto: We cannot afford enemies any more … Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray. Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious … that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together. We have no choice in the matter. … Technologically, we can stop overpopulation, but we have to persuade people to accept the technology. … Babies are the enemies of the human race … Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A. D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate.
Often attributed as remarks to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) (1980)
General sources
"The “Threat” of Creationism" http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/azimov_creationism.html in New York Times Magazine (14 June 1981)<!-- reprinted Science and Creationism (1984) edited by M. F. Ashley Montagu, p. 184 -->
General sources
Contexto: There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
