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Arthur C. Clarke

183 quotes

“Eumenes showed little taste for elaborate protocols; he was far too intelligent for that.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kolya believed that the Mongols’ expansion was pathological. It was a ghastly spiral of positive feedback, born of Genghis Khan’s unquestioned military genius and fueled by easy conquests, a plague of insanity and destruction that had spread across most of the known world.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He says that even a god cannot conquer time, but nine hundred years should be enough for anybody.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know, we’re not used to secrecy up here. It’s not encouraged. We all have to work together to keep alive. Secrecy is corrosive, Professor, bad for morale.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This project was no longer mathematics; it was engineering.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy is our most important possession. If we throw it away when the going gets tough, we might never get it back.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Such craziness captured media attention, but was fortunately still rare.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the religiosity around worries me—doesn’t it you?”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Slickness of presentation didn’t imply comprehensiveness of knowledge.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the pious fools come up against the godless pagans who own Judea, the result is what might be called diplomatic incidents.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You do realize how many impossible things have to be true for that to have happened?”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe it’s a mark of a maturing culture, do you think, that secrets aren’t kept, that truth is told, that things are talked out?”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’re not too heavily laden, Professor. What are those documents?” “Star charts,” he said firmly. “The true treasure of our civilization. A few books too—oh, what a horror it was that we were not able to empty the libraries! For once a book is lost to the ice, a little more of our past is gone forever. But as to my personal effects, my pots and pans, I have my own troop of slave bearers to help me with all that. They are called graduate students.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I approach my 90th birthday, my friends are asking how it feels like, to have completed 90 orbits around the Sun. Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89!”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe — on the contrary!”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer — one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best proof that there's intelligent life in outer space is the fact that it hasn't come here.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact was that he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only Homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania. Throughout the earlier part of its history, the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, messiahs, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the universe revealed. Some of them succeeded in establishing religions which survived for many generations and influenced billions of men; others were forgotten even before their deaths. The rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, not the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions, each of which claimed with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered. When our race has reached its ultimate achievements, and the stars themselves are scattered no more widely than the seed of Adam, even then we shall still be like ants crawling on the face of the Earth. The ants have covered the world, but have they conquered it — for what do their countless colonies know of it, or of each other? So it will be with us as we spread out from Earth, loosening the bonds of kinship and understanding, hearing faint and belated rumors at second — or third — or thousandth hand of an ever dwindling fraction of the entire human race. Though the Earth will try to keep in touch with her children, in the end all the efforts of her archivists and historians will be defeated by time and distance, and the sheer bulk of material. For the numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time. We have left the realm of comprehension in our vain effort to grasp the scale of the universe; so it must ever be, sooner rather than later.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“… we have a situation in which millions of vehicles, each a miracle of often unnecssary complication, are hurtling in all directions under the impulse of anything up to 200 horsepower. Many of them are the size of small houses and contain a couple of tons of sophisticated alloys — yet often carry a single passenger. They can travel at a hundred miles an hour, but are lucky if they average forty. In one lifetime they have consumed more irreplaceable fuel than has been used in the whole previous history of mankind. The roads to support them, inadequate though they are, cost as much as a small war; the analogy is a good one, for the casualties are on the same scale.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 3 (The Future of Transport) in Profiles of the Future (7th printing, 1972)
“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. William of Ockham pointed out as recently as your fourteenth century that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. I cannot therefore understand why this debate continues.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Plans for the final assault on Big Brother had already been worked out and agreed upon with Mission Control. Leonov would move in slowly, probing at all frequencies, and with steadily increasing power — constantly reporting back to Earth at every moment. When final contact was made, they would try to secure samples by drilling or laser spectroscopy; no one really expected these endeavours to succeed, as even after a decade of study TMA-1 resisted all attempts to analyse its material. The best efforts of human scientists in this direction seemed comparable to those of Stone Age men trying to break through the armour of a bank vault with flint axes.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), Ch. 43: Thought Experiment
“I have encountered a few "creationists" and because they were usually nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they were really mad, or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created the whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading humankind? And, although I do not necessarily agree with the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin's advocacy of evolution as a major proof of the glory of God, de Chardin's attitude is both logical and inspiring. A creator who laid the foundations for the entire future at the beginning of time is far more awesome than a clumsy tinkerer who constantly modifies his creations and throws away entire species in the process.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1532 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids, essay for journal Science, pp 1532-3 (5 June 1998)
“A depressing thought occurred to him, soon after he had started exploring - much of the time in fast-forward - these relics of the past. He had read somewhere that by the turn of the century - his century! - there were approximately fifty thousand television stations broadcasting simultaneously. If that figure had been maintained and it might well have increased - by now millions of millions of hours of TV programming must have gone on the air. So even the most hardened cynic would admit that there were probably at least a billion hours of worthwhile viewing... and millions that would pass the highest standards of excellence. How to find these few - well, few million - needles in so gigantic a haystack? The thought was so overwhelming - indeed, so demoralizing - that after a week of increasingly aimless channel surfing Poole asked for the set to be removed. p. 13”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What we find incredible is the way that people - right up to the early 2000s! - calmly accepted behaviour we would consider atrocious. And believed in the most mindboggled... Nonsense, which surely any rational person would dismiss out of hand.'... 'Examples, please.' 'Well... every year in some countries thousands of little girls were hideously mutilated to preserve their virginity? Many of them died - but the authorities turned a blind eye. 'I agree that was terrible - but what could my government do about it?' 'A great deal - if it wished. But that would have offended the people who supplied it with oil and bought its weapons, like the landmines that killed and maimed civilians by the thousand.' p.32”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then, one day, an unusually tasty dish appeared, which brought back vivid memories of the deer - hunts and barbecues of his youth. However, there was something unfamiliar about both flavour and texture, so Poole asked the obvious question. Anderson merely smiled, but for a few seconds Indra looked as if she was about to be sick. Then she recovered and said: 'You tell him - after we've finished eating.'... 'Corpse-food was on the way out even in your time,' Anderson explained. 'Raising animals to - ugh -eat them became economically impossible. I don't know how many acres of land it took to feed one cow, but at least ten humans could survive on the plants... And probably a hundred, with hydroponic techniques. 'But what finished the whole horrible business was not economics - but disease. It started first with cattle, then spread to other food animals - a kind of virus, I believe, that affected the brain, and caused a particularly nasty death.... Synthetic foods were now far cheaper, and you could get them in any flavour you liked. p.32 -33”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions — each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others — how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane. ...Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I'm afraid.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: God, Science, and Delusion: A Chat With Arthur C. Clarke" Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 19, Number 2 (Spring 1999)
“We should be less concerned about adding years to life, and more about adding life to years. I have been very fortunate to have witnessed some of humanity's greatest achievements during the 20th century that is nearing its end. Yet we must admit that it has also been the most savage century in the history of our kind. If I can have one more wish, I want to see lasting and meaningful peace achieved in Sri Lanka as early as possible. But I am aware that peace cannot just be wished; it involves hard work, courage and persistence. As we welcome 2001, let us harness our collective energies to create a culture of peace and a land of prosperity.”
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)
“In my time I've been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true! Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never expected to see so much happen in the span of a few decades. We "space cadets" of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel — but we didn't imagine that it lay in our own near future... I still can't quite believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age! We've accomplished a great deal in that time, but the "Golden Age of Space" is only just beginning. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit — and then, to the Moon and beyond. Space travel — and space tourism — will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations. I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation...”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these. Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us — or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen — I hope sooner rather than later! Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. ... Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet... The third wish is one closer to home. I've been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years — and half that time, I've been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country. I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible.”
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source