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Arthur C. Clarke
183 quotes
“Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Electronic Tutors (1980)
“All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
“I wanted to kill myself. I would have done it, too, if I had owned a gun. I was considering the gruesome alternatives — pills, slitting my wrists with a razor blade, jumping off a bridge — when another student called to ask me a detailed question on relativity. There was no way, after fifteen minutes of thinking about Mr. Einstein, that suicide was still a viable option. Divorce, certainly. Celibacy, highly likely. But death was out of the question. I could never have prematurely terminated my love affair with physics.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Richard Wakefield" in Rama II (1989)
“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 (1917–2008) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1984: Spring (1984)
“The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life — much less intelligence — beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Credo" (1991); also in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Essays, 1934-1998 (1999), p. 360
“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Credo" (1991); also in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Essays, 1934-1998 (1999), p. 360
“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 (1917–2008) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in And I Quote: The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (1992) by Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans and Andrew Frothingham, p. 279
“It is later than you think. May it not be true for this Sundial.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inscription for a Sundial at the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka (1996)
“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: IRC discussion at Scifi.com (1 November 1996) with Clarke and Gentry Lee
“My system saves lives!” Crane sighed and took a long pull from his bottle. “Few would consider that a compelling argument, doctor. Saving money is more to peoples tastes.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Civilization exists,” Crane said, “by geological consent, subject to change without notice.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nature of life is struggle, doctor,” Brother Ishmael said. Crane stopped walking and addressed the man. “And the nature of man is to try and rise above the struggle.” “To deny God!” Ishmael persisted. “To make a better world.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So many people did it that it was no longer an obsession; it was a demographic.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m giving you an order, lady.” “You’ve probably seen how well I respond to orders,” she said. “Look, you may as well save your breath.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another cheer. He turned to Newcombe. “Still think I’m crazy?” “Crazy for trying,” the man said. “Brilliant for succeeding.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People don't know what's good for them; they only know what they want. I learned to keep my expectations low a long time ago. It's good advice for anyone.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man's bodily functions moved only toward death, but the mind could continue to enrich itself even as everything else embraced entropy.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thinkers prepare the revolution; bandits carry it out.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s what I think they’re doing, eating themselves alive. They murder in the name of God and blindly destroy the very ecosystem that sustains them.” “People are people.” Bert shrugged. “What you’re really saying is that people are animals,” Crane replied. “And I say to you, it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make a civilization, a real civilization, built on real understanding of ourselves and our universe.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Crane, I love you, but you're bullheaded and blind when you want to be. You preach tolerance, politeness, but you do the same thing everyone else does—you try and build some cumulative tally of pain and loss, then compete to see who got hurt more. You can't base your relationship with the world on that.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His mistake was that he traded gods, science for Allah, and hence, traded goals without knowing it. He is as much a manufactured product of his religion as I am of mine, and as much a victim of it. But this is not about victims. Everybody's a victim. That's what Kate Masters prompted me to remember. Before it's done, we all lose everyone and everything that was ever important to us, and then we lose ourselves. We've got to get beyond our own victimhood and take the long view, the view to what we leave behind and what follows us.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Years compress like fault lines in the mind. While everything else changes, the mind remembers exactly what it wants to remember. A decade can be lost and a year seem like forever.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Within a few days he was being measured for his wings, not in the least like the elegant versions worn by the performers of Swan Lake. Instead of feathers there was a flexible membrane, and when he grasped the hand-holds attached to the supporting ribs, Poole realized that he must look much more like a bat than a bird.... For his first lessons he was restrained by a light harness, so that he did not move anywhere while he was taught the basic strokes - and, most important of all, learned control and stability. Like many acquired skills, it was not quite as easy as it looked. p.27”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I suppose they can detect sound vibrations - most marine creatures can - though this atmosphere may be too thin to carry my voice very far... Hello, can you hear me? My name is Frank Pool... ahem... I come in peace for all mankind. Makes me feel rather stupid, but can you suggest anything better? And it will be good for the record... Nobody's taking the slightest notice. Big ones and little ones, they're all creeping towards their igloos. Wonder what they actually do when they get there p. 29”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've just had an amusing flashback. All these creatures going in the same direction - they look like the commuters who used to surge back and forth twice a day between home and office, before electronics made it unnecessary. p.29”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People are always asking me why I've devoted my life to such a horrible period of history, and it's not much of answer to say that there were even worse ones.' 'Then why are you interested in my century?' 'Because it marks the transition between barbarism and civilization.'...”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, we in the so-called developed countries thought we were civilized. At least war wasn't respectable any more, and the United Nations was always doing its best to stop the wars that did break out.' 'Not very successfully: I'd give it about three out of ten...'”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all, there was the memory - and mystery - of Helena... It had begun as a casual affair, in the early days of his astrotraining, but had become more and more serious as the years went by. Just before he had left for Jupiter, they had planned to make it permanent when he returned. And if he did not, Helena wished to have his child. He still recalled the blend of solemnity and hilarity with which they had made the necessary arrangements...”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once you asked me about crime nowadays - I said any such interest pathological - maybe prompted by the endless sickening television programmes of your time - never able to watch more than few minutes myself... disgusting!”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes - crime. Always some... Society's irreducible noise level. What to do? Your solution - prisons. State-sponsored perversion factories - costing ten times average family income to hold one inmate! Utterly crazy... Obviously something very wrong with people who shouted loudest for more prisons - They should be psychoanalysed! But let's be fair - really no alternative before electronic monitoring and control perfected - you should see the joyful crowds smashing the prison walls then - nothing like it since Berlin fifty years earlier! p. 39”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You're Commander Poole, of course. But I'm sure we've never met before.'...He was glad of the encounter, and was pleased to know that Danil was back in normal society. Whether his original crime had been axe-murders or overdue library books should no longer be the concern of his one-time employer; the account had been settled, the books closed. p. 73”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although Poole sometimes missed the cops-and-robbers dramas he had often enjoyed in his youth, he had grown to accept the current wisdom: excessive interest in pathological behaviour was itself pathological. p. 73”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever godlike powers and principalities lurked beyond the stars, Poole reminded himself, for ordinary humans only two things were important - Love and Death. p. 87”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their little universe is very young, and its god is still a child. But it is too soon to judge them; when We return in the Last Days, We will consider what should be saved. p. 88, Epilogue”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The search for alien artefacts in the Solar System should be a perfectly legitimate branch of science ('exoarchaeology'?). Unfortunately, it has been largely discredited by claims that such evidence has already been found - and has been deliberately suppressed by NASA! p. 97, Acknowledgements”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 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. p. 97, Acknowledgements”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1917–2008) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1917–2008) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1917–2008) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1917–2008) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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 (1917–2008) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001)
“I've been saying for a long time that I'm hoping to find intelligent life in Washington ... I'm reasonably sure there must be life in this solar system, on Mars or on Europa, and other places. I think life is probably going to be ubiquitous, though we still don't have any proof of that yet — and still less, any proof of intelligent life anywhere. But I hope that will be coming in the next decade or so through radio astronomy or, perhaps, the discovery of objects in space which are obviously artificial. Astronomical engineering — that may be the other thing to look for.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001)
“I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about..”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in An Enchanted Life : An Adept's Guide to Masterful Magick (2001) by Patricia Telesco, p. 135
“The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But it is vital to remember that information — in the sense of raw data — is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Humanity will survive information deluge — Sir Arthur C Clarke" in OneWorld South Asia (5 December 2003)
“There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Values of the Wise : Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 31
“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 (1917–2008) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264
“SETI is probably the most important quest of our time, and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Seti@Home Donor List (2006)
“I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Multiple Intelligences in Practice : Enhancing Self-esteem and Learning in the Classroom (2006) by Mike Fleetham, Section 2 : Using MI
“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 (1917–2008) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Writer Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90" by Ravi Nessman in the Associated Press (18 March 2008)
“If children have interests then education happens.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source