There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.

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.

I’m not a speed reader. I’m a speed understander.

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. . .

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

From my close observation of writers…they fall into two groups 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

Science is a mechanism, 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.

University President Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers…and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn’t even ask for erasers.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ (I found it) but ‘That’s funny …’

One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

You must keep sending work out you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.