Robots and Empire Quotes

“Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“The work of each individual contributes to a totality, and so becomes an undying part of the totality. That totality of human lives—past and present and to come—forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens of thousands of years and has been growing more elaborate and, on the whole, more beautiful in all that time. Even the Spacers are an offshoot of the tapestry and they, too, add to the elaborateness and beauty of the pattern. An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole? Daneel, keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“No individual death among human beings is important. Someone who dies leaves his work behind and that does not entirely die. It never entirely dies as long as humanity exists.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Changelessness is decay."
"A paradox. There is no decay without a change for the worse."
"Changelessness is a change for the worse”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“An individual life is one thread in the tapestry and what is one thread compared to the whole?”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“It lasted for a long time, I believe."

"A very long time. It was a great success, but even great successes come to a natural end.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“I am a creature of dreams as well as of reason.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“I wouldn't want [the people of Baleyworld] to live that long as a general thing. The pace of historical and intellectual advance would then become too slow. Those at the top would stay in power too long. Baleyworld would sink into conversation and decay - as your world has done.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Since emotions are few and reasons many, the behavior or a crowd can be
more easily predicted than the behavior of one person can. And that, in turn, means that if laws are to be developed that enable the current of history to be predicted, then one must deal with large populations, the larger the better. That might itself be the First Law of Psychohistory, the key to the study of Humanics. Yet.'

R. Giskard Reventlov”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“I have made a discovery,' said Giskard, his voice carrying no shade of emotion. 'I have made it because, for the first time in my existence, I faced thousands of human beings. Had I done this two centuries ago, I would have made the discovery then. Had I never faced so many at once, then I would never have made the discovery at all.

'Consider, then, how many vital points I might easily grasp, but never have and never will, simply because the proper conditions for it will never come my way. I remain ignorant except where circumstance helps me, and I cannot count on circumstance.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots And Empire

“Zeroth Law...”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Work of each individual contributes to a totality and so becomes undying part of a totality. That totality is human life. Past and present and to come forms a tapestry that has been in existence now for many tens and thousands of years. And has been growing more elaborate, and on the whole more beautiful.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Yet weren't all human beings simply human beings no matter what name you applied to them[?]”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“If you have the courage to ask the question, you should have the courage to ask it openly.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Surely it is better that the immoral learn morality through adversity than that the moral forget morality in prosperity.”
― isaac asimov, Robots and Empire

“After a long time, I decided that the Three Laws govern the manner in which my positronic pathways behave. At all times, under all stimuli the Laws constrain the direction and intensity of positronic flow along those pathways so that I always know what to do. Yet the level of knowledge of what to do is not always the same. There are times when my doing-as-I-must is under less constraint than at other times. I have always noticed that the lower the positronomotive potential, then the further removed from certainty is my decision as to which action to take. And the further removed from certainty I am, the nearer I am to ill being. To decide an action in a millisecond rather than a nanosecond produces a sensation I would not wish to be prolonged. What then, I thought to myself, madam, if I were utterly without Laws, as humans are? What if I could make no clear decision on what response to make to some given set of conditions? It would be unbearable and I do not willingly think of it.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“That’s right, but it’s not a mathematical proposition. It’s a sociological observation
and there is always the possibility of exceptions to such observations." - Dr. Mandamus to Dr. Kelden Amadiro”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“They met near the southern limit of the establishment grounds and for a while they spoke in an abbreviated and Aesopic language. They understood each other well, with many decades of communication behind them, and it was not necessary for them to involve themselves in all the elaboration's of human speech.

Daneel said in an all but unhearable whisper, "Clouds. Unseen."

Had Daneel been speaking for human ears, he would have said, "As you see, friend Giskard, the sky has clouded up. Had Madam Gladia waited her chance to see Solaria, she would not, in any case, have succeeded."

And Giskard's reply of "Predicted. Interview, rather," was the equivalent of "So much was predicted in the weather forecast, friend Daneel, and might have been used as an excuse to get Madam Gladia to bed early. It seemed to me to be more important, however, to meet the problem squarely and to persuade her to permit this interview I have already told you about.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“What then, I thought to myself, madam, if I were utterly without Laws, as humans are? What if I could make no clear decision on what response to make to some given set of conditions? It would be unbearable and I do not willingly think of it.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Ellos se extenderán por la Galaxia a un ritmo que irá en aumento, sin la Tierra para mirar con nostalgia, sin la Tierra en forma de un dios, y establecerán un Imperio Galáctico. Era preciso que lo hiciéramos posible. Hizo una pausa, y su voz se debilitó al decir: «Robots e Imperio».”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“Es sorprendente que una colección de declaraciones que son individualmente ciertas puedan usarse, combinadas, para conseguir un resultado que no se hubiera logrado con la verdad.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“Ahora era precisamente aquel mundo frío, gris y miserable que le había parecido en un principio, pero su gente estaba llena de calor y vida. Era gente real, sólida. Solaria, Aurora, los otros mundos espaciales que había visitado o contemplado en hipervisión, parecían llenos de gente insustancial, «gaseosa». Esa era la palabra. «Gaseosos.»”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“—Mi muerte, Daneel —prosiguió— no es importante. Ninguna muerte individual es importante entre los humanos. Todo el que muere deja tras él su trabajo y eso no muere del todo. Jamás muere enteramente mientras exista la humanidad... ¿Comprendes lo que estoy diciendo? —Sí, colega Elijah. —El trabajo de cada individuo es una contribución a la totalidad y de este modo se vuelve parte inmortal de ella. La totalidad de las vidas humanas, pasadas, presentes y futuras, forman un tapiz que existe desde hace miles de millares de años y que se ha ido haciendo cada vez más hermoso y más complicado en todo este tiempo.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“público. No trató de razonar con ellos. Puede ser que cuanto mayor sea el grupo de gente, más fácilmente se les convence por la emoción que por la razón. Como las emociones son pocas y las razones muchas, el comportamiento de una masa de gente es más fácil de predecir que el comportamiento de una sola persona.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“Aparentemente, las multitudes se manejan más fácilmente que los individuos. Parece una paradoja.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“Con toda seguridad es preferible que el inmoral aprenda la moral a través de la adversidad, a que el moral olvide serlo en la prosperidad.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“en muchas ocasiones las reacciones humanas no parecen seguir con lógica los acontecimientos. —Eso es lo que hace difícil decidir, a veces, lo que puede dañar a un ser humano y lo que no.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots e imperio

“Un robot no puede lastimar a la humanidad o, por falta de acción, permitir que la humanidad sufra daños. La considero ahora la ley Cero de la Robótica. La primera ley debería decir: Un robot no debe dañar a un ser humano, o permitir, por inacción, que el ser humano sufra algún daño, a menos que tal acción viole la ley Cero de la Robótica.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire

“Un robot no puede lastimar
a la humanidad o, por falta de acción, permitir que la humanidad sufra daños.
La considero ahora la ley Cero de la Robótica. La primera ley debería decir: Un robot no debe dañar a un ser humano, o permitir, por inacción, que el ser
humano sufra algún daño, a menos que tal acción viole la ley Cero de la
Robótica.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire