In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
Interpretation
Life continues beyond defeats or endings, unlike the finality in chess.
Isaac Asimov highlights the difference between life and chess by emphasizing that, in life, setbacks or apparent 'endings' are not final; we continue to play and find new possibilities, growth, and opportunities even after significant challenges or losses. This perspective encourages resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity.
In practice
During a motivational speech about facing challenges and moving forward after failures.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
Helping others isn't a chore; it is one of the greatest gifts there is.
As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.
Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.
All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.