Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

217 Sourced Quotes

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas:
Every revolutionary idea — in science, politics, art, or whatever — seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
(1) "It's completely impossible — don't waste my time";
(2) "It's possible, but it's not worth doing";
(3) "I said it was a good idea all along."

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

Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke
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
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.

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

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

Arthur C. Clarke
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.

Arthur C. Clarke
To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea.

Arthur C. Clarke
When one has to ask, "Am I really in love?" the answer is always "No".

Arthur C. Clarke
We do not have to wait until someone produces "antigravity" before we can travel to the planets: the means is already at hand. It is the rocket.

Arthur C. Clarke
Perhaps one day men will no longer be interested in the unknown, no longer tantalized by mystery. This is possible, but when Man loses his curiosity one feels he will have lost most of the other things that make him human.

Arthur C. Clarke
Through all the ages, man has fought against two great enemies — time and space. Time he may never wholly conquer, and the sheer immensity of space may also defeat him when he has ventured more than a few light-years from the Sun. Yet on this little Earth, at least, he may one day claim a final victory.

Arthur C. Clarke
Even by the twenty-second century, no way had yet been discovered of keeping elderly and conservative scientists from occupying crucial administrative positions. Indeed, it was doubted if the problem ever would be solved.

Arthur C. Clarke
It has often been said — and though it is becoming platitudinous it is nonetheless true — that only through space-flight can mankind find a permanent outlet for its aggressive and pioneering instincts. The desire to reach the planets is only an extension of the desire to see what is over the next hill.

Arthur C. Clarke
Faiths come and go, but Truth abides. Out there among the stars lie such truths as we may understand, whether we learn them by our own efforts, or from the strange teachers who are waiting for us along the infinite road on which our feet are now irrevocably set.

Arthur C. Clarke
When we meet our peers among the stars, we need have nothing to fear save our own shortcomings.

Arthur C. Clarke
Interplanetary travel is now the only form of "conquest and empire" compatible with civilization. Without it, the human mind, compelled to circle forever in its planetary goldfish bowl, must eventually stagnate.

Arthur C. Clarke
Scientists of over fifty are good for nothing except board meetings and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!

Arthur C. Clarke
Nature never gives us something for nothing: in fact she usually takes more than she gives back.

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

Arthur C. Clarke
Deep beneath the surface of the Sun, enormous forces were gathering. At any moment, the energies of a million hydrogen bombs might burst forth in the awesome explosion.... Climbing at millions of miles per hour, an invisible fireball many times the size of Earth would leap from the Sun and head out across space.

Arthur C. Clarke
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.

Arthur C. Clarke
Who can guess what strange roads there may yet be on which we may travel to the stars?

Arthur C. Clarke
The menace of interplanetary imperialism can be overcome only by world-wide technical and political agreements well in advance of the actual event, and these will require continual pressure and guidance from the organizations which have studied the subject.

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

Arthur C. Clarke
There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence — or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them....

Arthur C. Clarke
When the first rocket lands on our satellite, the romantic writers will have lost the Moon, but it will be a small sacrifice, for the Universe will still remain as their playground.

Arthur C. Clarke
The signal vanished for agonizing seconds, then came back much clearer, though not appreciably louder... relay this information to Earth". Using my suit radio - no idea if it has enough range, but it's the only chance. Please listen carefully. THERE IS LIFE ON EUROPA. I repeat: "THERE IS LIFE ON EUROPA..."

Arthur C. Clarke