Positronic Quotes & Sayings

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

Mr Baley", said Quemot, "you can't treat human emotions as though they were built about a positronic brain".
"I'm not saying you can. Robotics is a deductive science and sociology an inductive one. But mathematics can be made to apply in either case. — Isaac Asimov

What do you mean by praying that God will have mercy upon all men, and save them with an everlasting salvation, and then tell the congregation that God has done all He can to save them, and the matter rests with them, whether they will be saved or not? ... if God has done all He can, why pray for Him do more? And if He has not done all He can, why tell the people He has? — William Gadsby

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

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. — Serena B. Miller

We seek out a balance, most notably between logic and emotion, like Spock and Kirk, or Data and Data in that episode where his emotion chip overloaded his positronic relays. You — Russ Unger

In honor of the marriage that worked, I include in this collection a sickeningly slick love story from The Ladies' Home Journal, God help us, entitled by them "The Long Walk to Forever." The title I gave it, I think, was "Hell to Get Along With. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Good music is good music, and everything else can go to hell. — Dave Matthews

Once again our cricketers have flattered to deceive in Australia. — Ted Dexter

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

All that had been done in the mid-twentieth century on "calculating machines" had been upset by Robertson and his positronic brain-paths. The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of plantinumiridium about the size of a human brain. She — Isaac Asimov

Data: My positronic brain has several layers of shielding to protect me from power surges. It would be possible for you to remove my cranial unit and take it with you.
Riker: Let me get this straight
you want me to take off your head?
Data: Yes sir — Star Trek The Next Generation