Arthur C. Clarke Quotes
December 16, 1917 – March 19, 2008
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Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny , he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life , he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it.
Arthur C. Clarke— Glide Path (1963) Chapter 27
One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind . Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Two-thirds of 2001 is realistic hardware and technology to establish background for the metaphysical , philosophical , and religious meanings later.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in The Making of Kubrick's 2001 (1970) by Jerome Agel, p. 300
We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ... The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation ... the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.
Arthur C. Clarke— Exploration of Space (1952)
All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.
Arthur C. Clarke— The City and the Stars (1956)
They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge ... no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command ... But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.
Arthur C. Clarke— Profiles of the Future (1962)
This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future , which is a little ironic since we may not have one.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in The Peter Plan : A Proposal for Survival (1976) by Laurence J. Peter
Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!
Arthur C. Clarke— Electronic Tutors (1980)
All these worlds are yours, except Europa . Attempt no landings there.
Arthur C. Clarke— 2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.
Arthur C. Clarke— 1984: Spring (1984)
Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.
Arthur C. Clarke— The Odyssey File (1984), also quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 128
The dinosaurs disappeared because they could not adapt to their changing environment . We shall disappear if we cannot adapt to an environment that now contains spaceships, computers and thermonuclear weapons.
Arthur C. Clarke— Foreword to The Collected Stories (June 2000)
Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in Duh! : The Stupid History of the Human Race (2000) by Bob Fenster, p. 208
The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in the [Sri Lanka] Sunday Times (31 December 2000)
The danger of asteroid or comet impact is one of the best reasons for getting into space … I'm very fond of quoting my friend Larry Niven: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"
Arthur C. Clarke— "Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001)
2001 was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history ; we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out on to the Sea of Tranquility. Now history and fiction have become inexorably intertwined.
Arthur C. Clarke— As quoted in "Writer Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90" by Ravi Nessman in the Associated Press (18 March 2008)
Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Arthur C. Clarke— "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)Perhaps the adjective "elderly" requires definition. In physics, mathematics, and astronautics it means over thirty; in the other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962; as revised in 1973)
Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke— "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic .
Arthur C. Clarke— Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
Clarke's Fourth Law: For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
Arthur C. Clarke— Profiles of the Future (1999, London: Victor Gollancz) p. 143
I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behavior at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 94)
Meanwhile, among all its countless other effects upon human culture, Starglider had brought to its climax a process that was already well under way. It had put an end to the billions of the words of pious gibberish with which apparently intelligent men had addled their minds for centuries.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 96)
There was no substitute for reality ; one should be aware of imitations.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 23 “Moondozer” (p. 129)
Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 35 “Starglider Plus Eighty” (p. 190)
What is becoming more interesting than the myths themselves has been the study of how the myths were constructed from sparse or unpromising facts indeed, sometimes from no facts in a kind of mute conspiracy of longing, very rarely under anybody’s conscious control.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 19 (The Light of Other Days (2000))
Just as the human memory is not a passive recorder but a tool in the construction of the self, so history has never been a simple record of the past, but a means of shaping peoples.
Arthur C. Clarke— The Light of Other Days, Chapter 19 (2000)
If the WormCam had shown nothing else, he thought, it was this, with pitiless clarity: that the lives of most humans had been miserable and short, deprived of freedom and joy and comfort , their brief moments in the light reduced to sentences to be endured.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 26 (The Light of Other Days (2000))
The vendors seemed comical, so intent were they on their slivers of meaningless profit, all unaware of the desolate ages that lay in their own near future, their own imminent deaths.
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 26 (The Light of Other Days (2000))
Maybe those nihilist philosophers are right; maybe this is all we can expect of the universe, a relentless crushing of life and spirit, because the equilibrium state of the cosmos is death ...
Arthur C. Clarke— Chapter 28 (The Light of Other Days (2000))
