Isaac Asimov Robot Quotes & Sayings

You just can't differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans. — Isaac Asimov

...the telemetrists began to use a computer to program the computer that designed the program for the computer that programmed the robot-controlling computer.
There was nothing but confusion. — Isaac Asimov

The trouble with you, Peter, is that when you think of a witness to a planetological statement, you think of planetologists. You divide up human beings into categories, and despise and dismiss most. A robot cannot do that. The First Law says, 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' Any human being. That is the essence of the robotic view of life. A robot makes no distinction. To a robot, all men are truly equal, and to a robopsychologist who must perforce deal with men at the robotic level, all men are truly equal, too. — Isaac Asimov

The robot said, 'I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of thi sevil into what you call good.'
He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own owrds, he said, 'Go, and sin no more! — Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. — Isaac Asimov

If a modified robot were to drop a heavy weight upon a
human being, he would not be breaking the First Law, if he did so with the knowledge
that his strength and reaction speed would be sufficient to snatch the weight away before
it struck the man. However once the weight left his fingers, he would be no longer the
active medium. Only the blind force of gravity would be that. The robot could then
change his mind and merely by inaction, allow the weight to strike. The modified First
Law allows that (79). — Isaac Asimov

Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition. — Isaac Asimov

Ah, the future good!" Leebig's eyes glowed with passion and he seemed to grow less conscious of his listener and correspondingly more talkative. "A simple concept, you think. How many human beings are willing to accept a trifling inconvenience for the sake of a large future good? How long does it take to train a child that what tastes good now means a stomach-ache later, and what tastes bad now will correct the stomach-ache later? Yet you want a robot to be able to understand? — Isaac Asimov

If a robot can be manipulated into doing harm to a man, it means only that we must extend the powers of the positronic brain. One might say we ought to make the human better. That is impossible, so we will make the robot more foolproof. — Isaac Asimov

Rabbi Loew of sixteenth-century Prague. He is supposed to have formed an artificial human being - a robot - out of clay, just as God had formed Adam out of clay. A clay object, however much it might resemble a human being, is "an unformed substance" (the Hebrew word for it is "golem"), since it lacks the attributes of life. Rabbi Loew, however, gave his golem the attributes of life by making use of the sacred name of God, and set the robot to work protecting the lives of Jews against their persecutors. — Isaac Asimov

Old friends are the great blessings of one's later years. Half a word conveys one's meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow To Be old friends? — Horace Walpole

Since emotions are few and reasons are many (said the robot Giscard) the behavior of a crowd can be more easily predicted than the behavior of one person. — Isaac Asimov

Is everything normal now?"
"Well he hasn't got religious mania, and he isn't running around in a circle
spouting Gilbert and Sullivan, so I suppose he's normal." (45) — Isaac Asimov

A robot may do nothing that, to its knowledge, will harm a human being; nor, through inaction, knowingly allow a human being to come to harm. — Isaac Asimov

First of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. — Isaac Asimov

And Elvex said, "I was the man." - In "Robot dreams" (Short story) — Isaac Asimov

I really like The Catcher in the Rye a lot. — Ethan Suplee

Human beings can tolerate an immortal robot, for it doesn't matter how long a machine lasts, but they cannot tolerate an immortal human being since their own mortality is endurable only so long as it is universal. — Isaac Asimov

Because, if you stop to think of it, the three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world's ethical systems. Of course, every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self-preservation. That's Rule Three to a robot. Also every 'good' human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority; to listen to his doctor, his boss, his government, his psychiatrist, his fellow man; to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to custom - even when they interfere with his comfort or his safety. That's Rule Two to a robot. Also, every 'good' human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his life to save another. That's Rule One to a robot. To put it simply - if Byerley follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man. — Isaac Asimov

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. [The Second Law of Robotics] — Isaac Asimov

(The word "robot" is from a Czech word meaning "compulsory labor.") — Isaac Asimov

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. — Isaac Asimov

Goodbye, Hari, my love. Remember always
all you did for me."

-I did nothing for you."

-You loved me and your love made me
human. — Isaac Asimov

The Three Laws of Robotics:
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;
3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;
The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. — Isaac Asimov

And his idea of solid comfort was to be left in utter solitude for two or three hours. — Isaac Asimov

The robot had no feelings, only positronic surges that mimicked those feelings. (And perhaps human beings had no feelings, only neuronic surges that were interpreted as feelings.) — Isaac Asimov

would like to thank his colleagues, particularly Andrin and Helen, for their generous encouragement in his book-writing. Finally, he is most grateful to Christina, who, against all his instincts, got him to buy a house on a hill in the middle of nowhere. It has turned out to be a place in the middle of somewhere very special indeed, and a perfect place to write. And to his six-year-old daughter Zoe, who has taught him more than — Richard Koch

The other one I did was 'I, Robot.' I take apart Isaac Asimov's Robots world. — Cory Doctorow

I suspect that some apparently homosexual people are really heterosexuals who deeply phobic about the opposite sex or have other emotional problems. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time. — Isaac Asimov

If you have this passion for music, you don't stop doing it - it chooses you and doesn't release you. — Tina Weymouth

If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love so what difference would it make? — Isaac Asimov

Carbon is the basis of human life and iron of robot life. It becomes easy to speak of C/Fe when you wish express a culture that combines the best of the two on an equal but parallel basis. — Isaac Asimov

I want to keep my voice young, with nothing heavy. — Renee Fleming