Arthur C. Clarke > Quotes

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“It may be that our role on this planet
is not to worship God--but to create him.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“What was more, they had taken the first step towrd genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would aways be a secret bond between them---not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering. ”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“Science is the only religion of mankind.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End

“Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.

Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.

But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many--perhaps most--of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven--or hell.

How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.

Men have been slow to face this prospect; some still hope that it may never become reality. Increasing numbers, however are asking; 'Why have such meetings not occurred already, since we ourselves are about to venture into space?'

Why not, indeed? Here is one possible answer to that very reasonable question. But please remember: this is only a work of fiction.

The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Humor was the enemy of desire.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“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

“Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“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

“Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“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

“The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Rama II

“. . . Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy--of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“I will not be afraid because I understand ... And understanding is happiness.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Rama Revealed

“I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her. ”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“For if not true, they are well imagined...”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“In this universe the night was falling; the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered; and along the path he once had followed, Man would one day go again.

”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“Overhead, and without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God

“He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2061: Odyssey Three

“In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best
science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction
writer.
[dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“What is human memory?" Manning asked. He gazed at the air as he spoke, as if lecturing an invisible audience - as perhaps he was. "It certainly is not a passive recording mechanism, like a digital disc or a tape. It is more like a story-telling machine. Sensory information is broken down into shards of perception, which are broken down again to be stored as memory fragments. And at night, as the body rests, these fragments are brought out from storage, reassembled and replayed. Each run-through etches them deeper into the brain's neural structure. And each time a memory is rehearsed or recalled it is elaborated. We may add a little, lose a little, tinker with the logic, fill in sections that have faded, perhaps even conflate disparate events.

"In extreme cases, we refer to this as confabulation. The brain creates and recreates the past, producing, in the end, a version of events that may bear little resemblance to what actually occurred. To first order, I believe it's true to say that everything I remember is false.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2061: Odyssey Three

“Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

“The rash assertion that "God made man in His own image" is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

“Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 3001: The Final Odyssey

“They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

“Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey