Science Quote by Isaac Asimov

Self-doubt is framed here not as a private feeling but as a social signal - the kind that quietly writes your resume before you ever speak. Asimov, a scientist who also became a mass-market intellectual, is arguing that confidence isn’t decoration; it’s a working hypothesis about yourself that other people tend to adopt because it simplifies their decision-making. “At your own reckoning” is the cold, almost mathematical phrasing that gives the line its bite: your self-assessment becomes the baseline measurement others plug into.

The intent is less motivational-poster than tactical guidance for navigating gatekeepers. In academia, publishing, and any prestige economy, people constantly evaluate incomplete information. They don’t have time to fully audit your capabilities, so they rely on proxies: credentials, language, poise. Asimov’s subtext is that self-undervaluation is a kind of unforced error - you’re handing skeptics a ready-made verdict. The gendered “a man should never think that” reads today as dated, but it also reveals the original milieu: a mid-century meritocracy that liked to pretend it was pure logic while running on status cues.

What makes it work is the pivot from inner life to external consequence. He’s not promising you’re secretly great; he’s warning you that how you price yourself affects how you’re treated. It’s a scientist’s version of charisma: not mystical, just behavioral feedback loops. The darker implication is that “reckoning” cuts both ways - overconfidence can be rewarded too, because the world often mistakes certainty for competence. Asimov is offering a survival rule for a system that rarely checks its own math.