quotes by 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)

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

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

"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

"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

"Science is the only religion of mankind."
— Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End)

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."
— Arthur C. Clarke

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

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
— 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)

"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

". . . 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)

"For if not true, they are well imagined..."
— 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

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic."
— 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

"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

"At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years.

"
— Arthur C. Clarke

"At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years.

"
— 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

"But as the ill-fated _Discovery_ had shown so well, all human plans were 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)

"But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth", when it is cleary "Ocean"."
— Arthur C. Clarke

"Humor was the enemy of desire."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"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)

"It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"What was more, they had taken the first step towrd genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actuslly happened."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2010: Odyssey Two)

"I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical."
— Arthur C. Clarke

"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
— Arthur C. Clarke

"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)

"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

"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)

"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)

"Almost any seat was comfortable at one-sixth of a gravity."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2061)

"Now, before you make a movie, you have to have a script, and before you have a script, you have to have a story; though some avant-garde directors have tried to dispense with the latter item, you'll find their work only at art theaters."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"Though the man-apes often fought and wrestled one another, their disputes very seldom resulted in serious injuries. Having no claws or fighting canine teeth, and being well protected by hair, they could not inflict much harm on one another. In any event, they had little surplus energy for such unproductive behavior; snarling and threatening was a much more efficient way of asserting their points of view."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"The confrontation lasted about five minutes; then the display died out as quickly as it had begun, and everyone drank his fill of the muddy water. Honor had been satisfied; each group had staked its claim to its own territory."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"As his body became more and more defenseless, so his means of offense became steadily more frightful."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"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)

". . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)

"We must assume that creatures whose machines still function after three million years may build a society equally long-lasting."
— Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey)