Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

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

For if not true, they are well imagined...

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

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

Here the trees surrounded them with an invisible, anechoic blanket, so that every word seemed sucked into silence the moment it was uttered.

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

The rash assertion that "God made man in His own image" is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths.

The thing's hollow - it goes on forever - and - oh my God! - it's full of stars!

My God
it's full of stars!

who is better off, the child with a mentor who knows and tells everything or the one whose teacher helps the child find her own answers?

Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral

Just like the cosmonauts and their pee plants, all we have is each other.

Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.

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

Historically, both fear and public opinion were notoriously unconcerned about morality.

Long ago it had been discovered that without some crime or disorder, Utopia soon became unbearably dull.

So the problem of Evil never really existed. To expect the universe to be benevolent was like imagining one could always win at a game of pure chance.

Kalevala, whereas

They would probably never even know that the human race existed. Such monumental indifference was worse than any deliberate insult. When

No trilogy should have more than four books.

Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias - boredom.

had often been said that the only thing that could unite Mankind was a threat from space.

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

The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.

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

That's still looking a long way ahead. For the present, you're the only person who should attempt communication. Agreed, Captain?

God was just this black void that we cried into.

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

President of the Society for Creative Anachronisms.

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?

Einsteinian time dilation.

Both times he had won through, but he knew well enough that any man, in the right circumstances, could be dehumanized by panic.

Is there intelligent life on Earth? Yours,

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

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

I am the biggest anachronism on Planet Earth.

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

Science fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future.

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

One's first existence was a precious gift which would never be repeated.

After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy left for a civilization.

Yes, it made sense, and was so absurdly simple that it would take a genius to think of it. And, perhaps, someone who did not expect to do it himself.

Because each of us is the sum of all we have ever experienced.

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

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

In the long run, there are no secrets. in science. The universe will not cooperate in a cover-up.

I HEAR YOU, FRANK. THIS IS DAVE.

..the happy hum of humanity.

it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!

One sample is poor statistics, my math prof used to say.

A gentle tickling on Floyd's wrist announced an incoming call.

When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart,

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

This hydrogen was under such enormous pressure that it had become a metal.

The piece of equipment I'm most found off is my telescope. The other night I had a superb view of the moon.

Though that, surely, could not be its ultimate goal, it was aimed squarely at the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the lonely gulfs beyond the Milky Way.

There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.

an expressive phrase coined by a Princeton mathematician of the last century: "Wormholes in space.

like all material things, they were not immune to the corruptions of Time and its patient, unsleeping servant, Entropy.

As a matter of interest," he said,

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

Hal in full control of the ship. The

The future is not to be forecast, but created.

Men knew better than they realized, when they placed the abode of the gods beyond the reach of gravity.

Forty-one was a very special number, the initial integer in the longest continuous string of quadratic primes.

Can the synthesis of man and machine ever be stable, or will the purely organic component become such a hindrance that it has to be discarded?

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

Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological

Chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.

If he was indeed mad, his delusions were beautifully organized.

Cassini - who discovered Japetus in 1671 - also observed that it was six times brighter on one side of its orbit than the other.

Please leave me alone; let me go on to the stars.

We're particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10 - the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.

The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.

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

Only small minds are impressed by large numbers.

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

No on of intelligence resents the inevitable.

For there was no vessel - at least of Man's making - anywhere between her and the infinitely distant stars.

Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect.

Reliability depended on redundancy and automatic checking, and human intervention was much more likely to do harm than good.

Hello, Dave," said Hal presently. "Have you found the trouble?" This

He happy hum of humanity.

There could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life.

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.

It was one thing to have guessed it, another to have had that guess confirmed beyond possibility of refutation.

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

The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.

My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.

But at least we have answered one ancient question. We are not alone. The stars will never again be the same to us.

Martin's one of the nicest fellows you could meet, as long as you don't do it too often.

Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.

I said nothing about men adapting themselves to Mars. Have you ever considered the possibility of Mars meeting us half-way?

On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.

As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there.

Faith in one's own destiny was among the most valuable of the gifts which the gods could bestow upon a man,

One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.

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

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

Beyond gravity, some of that freedom was regained; with the loss of weight went many of the cares and worries of Earth. Heywood