Arthur C. Clarke Quotations

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

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

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.

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?

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

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.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

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.

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

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!

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 the adjective 'elderly' requires definition. In physics, mathematics, and astronautics it means over thirty; in the other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

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.

I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

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.

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.

The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.

I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.

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

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

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.

The goal of the future is full unemployment

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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]

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

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

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

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

Religion is a byproduct of fear,

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.

Now I understand,” said the last man.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Science is the only religion of mankind.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts.

No trilogy should have more than four books.

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

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

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

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

It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.

My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion to ultimate truth that it represents...

Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it.

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.

The choice, as Wells once said, is the Universe-or nothing. . . . The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close. Humanity will have turned its back upon the still untrodden heights and will be descending again the long slope that stretches, across a thousand million years of time, down to the shores of the primeval sea.

Now I'm a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.

Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.

It was a pity that there was no radar to guide one across the trackless seas of life. Every man had to find his own way, steered by some secret compass of the soul. And sometimes, late or early, the compass lost its power and spun aimlessly on its bearings. Alan Bishop

But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.

No one of intelligence resents the inevitable.

In all the universe there is nothing more precious than mind.

The exploration of the planets is now closer to us in time than the exploration of Africa by Stanley and Livingstone.

If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.

Only small minds are impressed by large numbers.

What is becoming more interesting than the myths themselves has been the study of how the myths were constructed from sparse or unpromising facts indeed, sometimes from no facts in a kind of mute conspiracy of longing, very rarely under anybody's conscious control.

Any path to knowledge is a path to God-or Reality, whichever word one prefers to use

They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.

When you finally understand the universe, it will not only be stranger than you imagine, it will be stranger than you can imagine.

People go through four stages before any revolutionary development: 1. It's nonsense, don't waste my time. 2. It's interesting, but not important. 3. I always said it was a good idea. 4. I thought of it first.

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.

The only real problem in life is what to do next.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.

Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.

If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs-those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures-then we may be certain of this: for all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean- 'spaceship.'

I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.