1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes
page 2

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.

He is famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays, which appeared in various popular magazines. In 1961 he was awarded the Kalinga Prize, an award which is given by UNESCO for popularizing science. These along with his science fiction writings eventually earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". His other science fiction writings earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership made him one of the towering figures of science fiction. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system, an idea which won him the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal in 1963, and other honours. Later he was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–47 and again in 1951–53.

Clarke emigrated from England to Sri Lanka in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his fame later on in the 1980s, from being the host of several television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death. He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.

✵ 16. December 1917 – 19. March 2008  •  Other names Arthur Charles Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke: 207 quotes13 likes

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

“Now I understand,” said the last man.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Childhood's End

Source: Childhood's End

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

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in Multiple Intelligences in Practice : Enhancing Self-esteem and Learning in the Classroom (2006) by Mike Fleetham, Section 2 : Using MI
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“Humor was the enemy of desire.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2010: Odyssey Two

Source: 2010: Odyssey Two

“… the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

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

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 264
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

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

Arthur C. Clarke book Childhood's End

Source: Childhood's End

“The creation of wealth is certainly not to be despised, but in the long run the only human activities really worthwhile are the search for knowledge, and the creation of beauty. This is beyond argument, the only point of debate is which comes first.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Source: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Nine Billion Names of God

1950s
Source: "The Nine Billion Names of God", 1953

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

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

“["The Devil in the Dark"] impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction thennow, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.”

Arthur C. Clarke

“When in doubt, say nothing and move on.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama

Source: Rendezvous with Rama

“Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological”

Arthur C. Clarke book 3001: The Final Odyssey

Source: 3001: The Final Odyssey

“Now I can rejoice that I knew you, rather than mourn because I lost you.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Source: The Songs Of Distant Earth

“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 book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 95)

“… 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

Source: 1970s, Chapter 3 (The Future of Transport) in Profiles of the Future (7th printing, 1972)

“Even though you were once a goddess, Kalidasa’s heaven was only an illusion.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 11 “The Silent Princess” (p. 67)

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

Arthur C. Clarke

&quot;Sir Arthur&#x27;s Quotations&quot; http://www.clarkefoundation.org/about-sir-arthur/sir-arthurs-quotations/, The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. <br class="br">Disputed

“The vendors seemed comical, so intent were they on their slivers of meaningless profit, all unaware of the desolate ages that lay in their own near future, their own imminent deaths.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 26

“If children have interests then education happens.”

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in Ted Talk &quot;The child-driven education&quot; http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html by Sugata Mitra (2012) <br class="br">2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“Somewhere back at the beginning I was chosen to be Jester, and there is only one Jester at a time in Diaspar. Most people think that is one too many.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 5 (p. 33)

“Others, one suspects, are afraid that the crossing of space, and above all contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith. They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination — for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”

Arthur C. Clarke

The Exploration of Space (1951)
1950s

“The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But 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.”

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in &quot;Humanity will survive information deluge — Sir Arthur C Clarke&quot; in OneWorld South Asia (5 December 2003) http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/74591/1 <br class="br">2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“The Ramans do everything in threes.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
1970s

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Voices from the Sky : Previews of the Coming Space Age (1967)
1960s

“Through long and bitter experience, Rajasinghe had learned never to trust first impressions, but also never to ignore them.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 2 “The Engineer” (p. 10)

“It is later than you think. May it not be true for this Sundial.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Inscription for a Sundial at the University of Moratuwa Sri Lanka (1996) http://www.ent.mrt.ac.lk/~rohan/career/projects/sundial/sundial.html <br class="br">1990s

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 19

“They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge … no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command … But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Profiles of the Future (1962)
1960s

“After a while Hilvar did his best to steer the conversation away from these meaningless morasses of theology in order to concentrate on the ascertainable facts.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 13 (p. 100)

“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

Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids, essay for journal Science, pp 1532-3 (5 June 1998)
1990s

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

Arthur C. Clarke

The Odyssey File (1984), also quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 128
1980s

“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 book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 13 (p. 99)

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

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in Values of the Wise : Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 31
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“He had discharged his destiny; now, perhaps, he could begin to live.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 25 (p. 187)

“If the house is to be demolished tomorrow anyhow, people seem to feel, we may as well burn the furniture today. None of our problems are insoluble…But it seems clear that to prevail we humans will have to act with a smartness and selflessness that has so far eluded us during our long and tangled history.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 4

“There was no substitute for reality; one should be aware of imitations.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 23 “Moondozer” (p. 129)

“SETI is probably the most important quest of our time, and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Seti@Home Donor List (2006) http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donorlist.php <br class="br">2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from birth to death, we wear the water-filled space suits of our skins.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

“If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”

Arthur C. Clarke

The Exploration of Space (1951), p. 111
1950s

“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

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke

The Exploration of Space (1951), p. 187
1950s

“Just as the human memory is not a passive recorder but a tool in the construction of the self, so history has never been a simple record of the past, but a means of shaping peoples.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 19

“I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behavior at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 94)

“We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

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

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 6

“Clarke's Fourth Law: For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Profiles of the Future (1999, London: Victor Gollancz) p. 143
On Clarke's Laws