Extended excerpt  [Letter excerpt – Chapter 38. Full excerpt cited from selection of nearly “45,000 carbons” [copies] of letters from Asimov that his brother, Stanley Asimov, reviewed after his death. In his introduction to Yours, Isaac Asimov, Asimov noted that “…because the contents of the letters stand on their own merits, I have omitted the names of the recipients. Only in those cases where it’s vital to understanding the letters have I indicated to whom the letter was written.” (p. xiii)]:

“I don’t subscribe to the thesis, “Let the buyer beware.” I prefer the disregarded one that goes, “Let the seller be honest.”

Source: Editor’s copy – Yours, Isaac Asimov, A Lifetime of Letters (1995) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-385-47624-8

Extended excerpt:

“Step 6 – A Critic Asks a Question | In 1957, I published my novel The Naked Sun in book form. It was a science fiction mystery. Also, it had a rather understated love story in it with a rather toughing final scene between the lovers. Damon Knight reviewed the book, and he wasn’t in the least impressed by the science fiction or the mystery. (I suppose he’s entitled to his opinion, but I don’t suppose it very hard.) However, he liked the love story. “If you can write like that, Asimov,” he asked rhetorically in the course of his review, “why do you bother writing science fiction?” To which I answered in a letter that appeared in the magazine in with the review had earlier appeared, “Because I love science fiction. No matter what else happens, I will never stop writing science fiction. …” (p. 25)

Source note: Asimov also included the essay in book The Tyrannosaurus Prescription and 100 Other Essays [Prometheus Books, 1989 (ISBN) 0-87975-540-7]

Source: Library – The Nebula Awards 22 (1988) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-15-665476-8

Extended excerpt  [Encyclopedia foreword, reprinted in Asimov essay collection]:

“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 – and naturally this means that there must be an accurate perception of 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.” (p. 19)

Source: Library – Asimov on Science Fiction (1981) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-385-17443-8

Extended excerpt  [Letter to children of Troy, MI, congratulating them on their new public library.]:

“Congratulations on the new library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you – and most of all, a gateway to a better and happier and more useful life.”

Source link: Asimov letter to Troy Public Library (16 Mar 1971) Image & text via Letters of Note: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/05/library-is-many-things.html

Extended excerpt  [Non-fiction]:

“Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and score and ignore other fields, they grow less wise – even in their own field.

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. … 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. (p. 116)

Source: Library – The Roving Mind (1983) Prometheus Books, 1997 edition – International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 1-57392-181-5

Re-quote note: The original gender reference was edited when Basic Books republished Asimov’s essay in Asimov’s New Guide to Science in 1984:

1984 update: “The greatest weapons in the conquest of knowledge are an understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on.” (Basic Books, p. 56)

1960 original text: “Man’s greatest weapons in his conquest of knowledge are his understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on.”

Extended excerpt  [Non-fiction]:

“Man’s greatest weapons in his conquest of knowledge are his understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on. And his resourceful mind has continually invented new instruments which have opened up horizons beyond the reach of his unaided sense organs.” (p. 64)

Source: Library – The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science (1962) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Number: 930530723

Extended excerpt  [Fictional narrative – ‘Salvor Hardin’ is a Asimov fictional character.]:

“Tales without end are told of these massive, lonely figures who bore half-seriously, half-mockingly a motto adopted from one of Salvor Hardin’s epigrams, “Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!” (p. 143)

Source Note: “The Wedge” is one in a series of eight “Foundation” short stories Asimov published in Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 1950. The stories were eventually republished as part of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy book series beginning in 1951.

Source:  Library – Foundation (1951 – 2004 Bantam Dell edition) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-553-90034-X

Extended excerpt  [Fictional narrative]:

“Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young.” (p. 131)

Source:  Library – Pebble in the Sky (1950 – 2010 Orb Books edition) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 978-0-7653-1913-5

Extended excerpt [Interview]:

Interviewer Bill Moyers: “What’s the real knowledge?”

Isaac Asimov: “We can’t be absolutely certain. Science does not 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. This works not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life.” (p. 270)

Source: [Book] Editor’s copy – Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas (May 1989) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-385-26278-5

Source link: [Video]: “Isaac Asimov on His Faith in the Power of Human Reason” (17 Oct. 1988) Moyers & Co: http://billmoyers.com/content/isaac-asimov-on-his-faith-in-the-power-of-human-reason/

Extended excerpt  [Essay]:

“It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, “America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?”

None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” (column 1, p. 19)

Source link:  “A Cult of Ignorance” (21 January 1980) Newsweek; .pdf file of article online via Aphelis: http://media.aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf

Extended excerpt  [Essay]:

“In my recent book on the Bible, I naturally had occasion to refer to the plagues that visited Egypt in the time of Moses, as described in the Book of Exodus. In doing so I said:

“Although these plagues, if they had taken place as described in the Bible, must have loomed large in any contemporary records or in later histories, no reference to them is to be found in any source outside the Bible. In 1950, Immanuel Velikovsky, in his book Worlds in Collision attempted to account for the plagues (and for some other events described in the Bible) by supposing that the planet Venus had undergone a near collision with the earth. The book created a moderate sensation among the general public for a while but the reaction of astronomers varied from amusement to anger, and the Velikovsian theory has never, for one moment, been taken seriously either by scientists or by Biblical scholars.”

That’s all I said, and it seems to me that I spoke gently and without undue heat. Nevertheless, the vials of wrath were opened upon me and I received a number of letters from ardent Velikovskians denouncing my innocent statement with a great deal of emotional fervor.

Which just goes to bear out my feeling that there is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.” (p. 36)

Source: Library – The Stars in Their Courses (1974) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 118506

Extended excerpt  [Essay]:

“There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance implies only ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.”  (Page 92, column 3 of NY Times Magazine. Page 378 of full electronic edition file.)

Source link: “The ‘Threat’ of Creationism” (14 June 1981) online via The New York Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/14/magazine/the-threat-of-creationism.html?pagewanted=2

Extended excerpt  [Fictional dialogue]:

“Exactly as you do, Councilman. 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?” (p. 105)

Source: Library – Foundation and Earth (1986) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-385-23312-4

Re-quote note:

The phrase “last refuge of the incompetent” was not coined by Asimov. Although we did not find an earlier source that used the phrase to define violence, there were several other iterations of it in the early 1900s & late 1800s. Examples include:

1878: “Universal philanthropy is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

(Source: “Number One,” 7 March 1878, Truth magazine, Vol. III, London: Truth, p. 310)

1901: “The plea of the “inevitable” is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

(Source: Peace or War in South Africa, A.M.S. Methuen, London: Methuen & Co., 16th ed., p. 238)

1931: “Public office…is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

(Source: Boies Penrose, Pennsylvania senator, in “Power & Glory,” Collier’s Weekly, 14 Feb. 1931)

Extended excerpt  [Fictional dialogue]:

“Yate Fulham’s mustache twitched. “That sounds as if you have made up your mind that violence must be used against them.”

“Violence,” came the retort, “is the last refuge of the incompetent. But I certainly don’t intent to lay down the welcome mat and brush off the best furniture for their use.”

   “I still don’t like the way you put that,” insisted Fulham. “It is a dangerous attitude; the more dangerous because we have noticed lately that a sizable section of the populace seems to respond to all your suggestions just so.” (p. 49, column 2)

Source Note: “Foundation” is one in a series of eight “Foundation” short stories Asimov published in Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 1950. The stories were eventually republished as part of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy book series beginning in 1951.

Source link: “Foundation” (May 1942) in Astounding Science Fiction; scanned image via Gabriel Schenk: https://phnewby.net/other/astounding-may1942.pdf

Extended excerpt  [Newspaper coverage of lecture]:

“After surveying new methods in aeronautical research, Mr. Wimperis said: “Can I truthfully say that all this activity is imperatively bound to add to human happiness? I fear not.

“The provision by scientific research of increased power over nature produces greater happiness if, and only if, it is wisely employed. The world gathers knowledge faster than wisdom.” (p. 9, column 5)

Source link [Featured source]: “Research Director Not Sorry it Is Ended” (27 May 1932) Nottingham Evening Post; online via The British Newspaper Archive [subscription service]: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000321/19320527/034/0009

Source link [Asimov re-quote – 1988]: Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations ; online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/BookOfScienceAndNatureQuotations-IsaacAsimov/asimov-nature-quotes#page/n299/mode/2up/search/gathers

Misattibution note:

This quote is frequently misattributed to author Isaac Asimov. The words, however, are original to Alda – we could find no record of Asimov sharing this idea (or a similar phrase) in any of his writing, interviews or other material.

Extended excerpt  [Alan Alda’s commencement speech to graduating class of Connecticut College. His daughter, Eve, was one of the students receiving her degree that day.]:

“If we can make distinctions, we can be tolerant, and we can get to the heart of our problems instead of wrestling endlessly with their gross exteriors. And once you make a habit of making distinctions, you’ll begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. If you challenge your own, you won’t be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others.” (pp. 2-3)

Source link: “62nd Commencement Speech, 1980” (June 1980) online via Connecticut College: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/commence/7/