Top 267 Quotes & Sayings by Arthur C. Clarke
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English writer Arthur C. Clarke.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here. Well, it can't hide forever - one day we will overhear it.
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.
New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.
I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.
We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 - and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20?
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.
I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.
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.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
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.
What we need is a machine that will let us see the other guy's point of view.
Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.
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.
You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.
Now I'm a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.
The difference between machines and human beings is that human beings can be reproduced by unskilled labour.
Until we get rid of religion, we won't be able to conduct the search for God.
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.
Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts.
The only real problem in life is what to do next.
The future is not to be forecast, but created.
Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas.
The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.
Guns are the crutches of the impotent.
Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.
Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.
When you finally understand the universe, it will not only be stranger than you imagine, it will be stranger than you can imagine.
The universe must be full of voices, calling from star to star in a myriad tongues. One day we shall join that cosmic conversation.
We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return...
But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
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.
I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.
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.
The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
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.
The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.
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