The Fountains of Paradise Quotes

“Because politics is the science of the possible, it only appeals to second-rate minds. The first raters only interested in the impossible”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Instantly, there had been cries of protest from the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed out that the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“There is something very strange about a universe where a few dead butterflies can balance a billion-ton tower.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“The hypothesis you refer to as God, though not disprovable by logic alone, is unnecessary for the following reason. “If you assume that the universe can be quote explained unquote as the creation of an entity known as God, he must obviously be of a higher degree of organization than his product. Thus you have more than doubled the size of the original problem, and have taken the first step on a diverging infinite regress.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Belief in God is apparently a psychological arti-fact of mammalian reproduction.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“And as for you, Paul, I assured him that you could keep a secret for up to six days without apoplexy.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Though he had a devoted coterie of fans who subscribed to his information service—in an earlier age, he would have been called a pop scientist—he had an even larger circle of critics. The kinder ones considered that he had been educated beyond his intelligence. The others labeled him a self-employed idiot. It”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Tranquillity was not a state of mind that could be sustained for long.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Any fool could shuffle genes and most did.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“generally credited with the famous aphorism “Belief in God is apparently a psychological artefact of mammalian reproduction”. But what if this is true? It is totally irrelevant to the question of God’s actual existence, as I shall now proceed to demonstrate. … Swami Krisnamurthi (Dr. Choam Goldberg)”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“Men have an extraordinary, and perhaps fortunate, ability to tune out of their consciousness the most awesome future possibilities. The Roman farmer, ploughing the slopes of Vesuvius, gave no thought to the mountain smoking overhead. Half the twentieth century lived with the Hydrogen Bomb—”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“the Antarctic Pipeline—that miracle of twenty-first-century engineering, built to pump fluidised coal from the vast polar deposits to the power plants and factories of the world. In a mood of ecological euphoria, TCC had proposed demolishing the last remaining section of the pipeline and restoring the land to the penguins. Instantly there had been cries of protest from the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed out that the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline. It had provided housing of a standard they had never before enjoyed, and thus contributed to a population explosion that the killer whales could barely handle.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be altogether disregarded…. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”
Sigmund Freud
New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, 1932”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“One of Taprobane’s more outrageous sunsets was transfiguring the western sky when a small electrotricycle came silently through the trees and drew up beside the granite columns of the portico. (Genuine Chola,”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“It could not last, of course. Presently he became aware of the buzzing of insects, the distant barking of dogs, the cold hardness of the stone upon which he was sitting. Tranquillity was not a state of mind that could be sustained for long. With a sigh, Rajasinghe got to his feet and began to walk back to his car, parked a hundred meters outside the temple grounds.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise

“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. I refer you particularly to the Beatles, 1956;”
― Arthur C. Clarke, The Fountains of Paradise