Arthur C. Clarke Quotations | Page 3

The moment when one first meets a great work of art has an impact that can never again be recaptured.

The universe must be full of voices, calling from star to star in a myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation.

I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.

No trilogy should have more than four books.

Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts.

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.

Somewhere in me is a curiosity sensor. I want to know what's over the next hill. You know, people can live longer without food than without information. Without information, you'd go crazy.

Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly.

Sometimes a decision has to be made by a single individual, who has the authority to enforce it. That's why you need a captain. You can't run a ship by a committee-at least not all the time.

The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic.

Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties are, if it is desired greatly enough.

The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past...

When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart, and only its absence can produce any emotional effect.

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it.

Since women are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can't think of it.

When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy.

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ...

I will not be afraid because I understand ... And understanding is happiness.

You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.

He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true.

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?

Science is the only religion of mankind.

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

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.

What we need is a machine that will let us see the other guy's point of view.

It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible.

Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.

Now I understand,” said the last man.

Mars is the next frontier, what the Wild West was, what America was 500 years ago. It's time to strike out anew....Mars is where the action is for the next thousand years....The characteristic of human nature, and perhaps our simian branch of the family, is curiosity and exploration. When we stop doing that, we won't be humans anymore. I've seen far more in my lifetime than I ever dreamed. Many of our problems on Earth can only be solved by space technology....The next step is in space. It's inevitable.

Religion is a byproduct of fear,

God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.

Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas.

Until we get rid of religion, we won't be able to conduct the search for God.

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]

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

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.

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

Across the gulf of centuries, the blind smile of Homer is turned upon our age. Along the echoing corridors of time, the roar of the rockets merges now with the creak of the wind-taut rigging. For somewhere in the world today, still unconscious of his destiny, walks the boy who will be the first Odysseus of the Age of Space.

Finally, I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.

The goal of the future is full unemployment

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.

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.

Why, Robert Singh often wondered, did we give our hearts to friends whose life spans are so much shorter than our own?

We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from birth to death, we wear the water-filled space suits of our skins.