Foundation and Earth (Foundation, #5)

by Isaac Asimov

“there must have been a time before the beginning of history when human beings were so primitive that, although they could remember events, they could not speak. Speech was invented and served to express memories and to transfer them from person to person. Writing was eventually invented in order to record memories and transfer them across time from generation to generation. All technological advance since then has served to make more room for the transfer and storage of memories and to make the recall of desired items easier.

“One could argue that every society molds its population to fit itself. Customs develop that make sense within the society, and that chain every individual firmly to its needs.”

“You can’t have geniuses and saints without having people far outside the norm, and I don’t see how you can have such things on only one side of the norm. There is bound to be a certain symmetry.

Every atom in me has a long history during which it may have been part of many living things, including human beings, and during which it may also have spent long periods as part of the sea, or in a lump of coal, or in a rock, or as a portion of the wind blowing upon us.”

“It seems to me, then, that a robot that can in no way be distinguished from a human being is a human being.

if you were a robot that was indistinguishable from a human being, you might be designed to tell me you were a natural human being, and you might even be programmed to believe it yourself. The operational definition is all we have, and all we can have.”

I am constantly thinking and I am constitutionally averse to letting myself be carried away by emotion. It’s a lifelong habit, and probably very annoying to others.

You believe you serve as the guardians of the Galaxy.”

If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable. And if we wish to push our own individual advantage, as we see it, then we will always find reason to believe that some hampering rule is unjust and unreasonable. What starts, then, as a shrewd trick ends in anarchy and disaster, even for the shrewd trickster, since he, too, will not survive the collapse of society.”

Rules, established with reason and justice, can easily outlive their usefulness as circumstances change, yet can remain in force through inertia. It is then not only right, but useful, to break those rules as a way of advertising the fact that they have become useless—or even actually harmful.”

Here, in freedom, even when almost everyone agrees, there are bound to be a few who disagree and, in some cases, those few may be right, and if they are clever enough, enthusiastic enough, right enough, they will win out in the end and be heroes in future ages—like

Superstition always directs action in the absence of knowledge.

I accept only what I am forced to accept by reasonably reliable evidence, and keep that acceptance tentative pending the arrival of further evidence. That doesn’t make us popular.” “Why not?” said Trevize. “We wouldn’t be popular anywhere. Where is the world whose people don’t prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty?

Common belief, even universal belief, is not, in itself, evidence.”

“if you wish to call the truth impossible, that is your privilege, but it will get you nowhere.”

the more we are made aware of our subordinate position, the stronger the belief in the great, mysterious days of the past become.

A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment.” “Surely,” said Pelorat, “such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don’t think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive.”

If you start dismissing anyone or anything you want to do away with as just a this or just a that, you can destroy anything you wish. There are always categories you can find for them.”

we are enclosed in our private skins surrounding our private thoughts, and we think first and foremost of ourselves. Self-defense is our first law of nature, even if that means harming everyone else in existence.”

“Frankly,” said Trevize, “it’s annoying not to know the pronoun to use in connection with the creature. It impedes thought and conversation to hesitate forever at the pronoun.” “But that’s the fault of our language,” said Bliss, “and not of Fallom. No human language has been devised with hermaphroditism in mind.

Human beings are very conservative in some ways and virtually never change numerical conventions once they grow used to them. They even come to mistake them for laws of nature,

“Just before Giskard’s end, he conceived of a robotic law that superseded even the first. We called it the ‘Zeroth Law’ out of an inability to think of any other name that made sense. The Zeroth Law is: ‘A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.’ This automatically means that the First Law must be modified to be: ‘A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the Zeroth Law.’ And similar modifications must be made in the Second and Third Laws.”