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Arthur C. Clarke Quotes
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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   quotes 12   likes

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

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

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in An Enchanted Life : An Adept's Guide to Masterful Magick (2001) by Patricia Telesco, p. 135
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Question , Thinking

“I wanted to kill myself. I would have done it, too, if I had owned a gun. I was considering the gruesome alternatives — pills, slitting my wrists with a razor blade, jumping off a bridge — when another student called to ask me a detailed question on relativity. There was no way, after fifteen minutes of thinking about Mr. Einstein, that suicide was still a viable option. Divorce, certainly. Celibacy, highly likely. But death was out of the question. I could never have prematurely terminated my love affair with physics.”

Arthur C. Clarke

"Richard Wakefield" in Rama II (1989)
1980s

Love , Death , Way , Question

“I am afraid that this chapter will amply demonstrate the truth of Clarke's 69th Law, viz., "Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software." In both cases the cure is simple though usually very expensive.”

Arthur C. Clarke

"Appendix II: MITE for Morons," The Odyssey File (1984), p. 123
On Clarke's Laws

Truth , Law , Sex , Reading

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

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in the [Sri Lanka] Sunday Times (31 December 2000) http://www.sundaytimes.lk/001231/news4.html
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

World , Intelligence

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Foreword to The Collected Stories (June 2000)
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Change

“Meanwhile, among all its countless other effects upon human culture, Starglider had brought to its climax a process that was already well under way. It had put an end to the billions of the words of pious gibberish with which apparently intelligent men had addled their minds for centuries.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 96)

Men , Way , Intelligence

“If the artist did not know his goal, even the most miraculous of tools could not find it for him.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 2 (p. 13)

“The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life — much less intelligence — beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.”

Arthur C. Clarke

"Credo" (1991); also in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Essays, 1934-1998 (1999), p. 360
1990s

Life , Disappointment , Intelligence

“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

Quoted in And I Quote: The Definitive Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes for the Contemporary Speechmaker (1992) by Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans and Andrew Frothingham, p. 279
1990s

War

“2001 was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history; we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out on to the Sea of Tranquility. Now history and fiction have become inexorably intertwined.”

Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in "Writer Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90" by Ravi Nessman in the Associated Press (18 March 2008) http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jfE8qUikNEG6MVWqYku2k8BD_RcgD8VG4VI00
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Age , History , Sea

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 10 “The Ultimate Bridge” (p. 52)

Women , Men , Nature , Thinking

“If the WormCam had shown nothing else, he thought, it was this, with pitiless clarity: that the lives of most humans had been miserable and short, deprived of freedom and joy and comfort, their brief moments in the light reduced to sentences to be endured.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

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

Freedom , Light , Joy

“Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!”

Arthur C. Clarke

Electronic Tutors (1980)
1980s

Teachers

“Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 35 “Starglider Plus Eighty” (p. 190)

God

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

Arthur C. Clarke

Attributed to Clarke on the internet, this has also been attributed to Isaac Asimov in published works.
Disputed

“It is not my duty as an historian to predict the future, only to observe and interpret the past. But its lesson is clear enough; we have lived too long out of contact with reality, and now the time has come to rebuild our lives.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 24 (p. 183)

Reality , Time , Past , Future

“One fail-safe after another had let them down. Helped by the ionospheric storm, the sheer perversity of inanimate things struck again.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 43 “Fail-Safe” (p. 223)

Help

“The fates could not possibly be so malevolent, now that he had only a few hundred meters to go.
He was whistling in the dark, of course. How many aircraft had crashed at the very edge of the runway, after safely crossing an ocean? How many times had machines or muscles failed when there were only millimeters to go? Every possible piece of luck, bad as well as good, happened to somebody, somewhere. He had no right to expect any special treatment.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 53 “Fade-Out” (pp. 272-273)

Fate , Time

“There still remained, for all men to share, the linked worlds of love and art. Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with love.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 5 (p. 37)

Love , Men , World , Art

“The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

God , Truth , Faith , Universe

“To obtain a mental picture of the distance to the nearest star, compared to the nearest planet, you must imagine a world in which the closest object to you is only five feet away — and there is nothing else to see until you have travelled a thousand miles.”

Arthur C. Clarke

We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)

World , Travel , Imagination , Star

“If I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these.
Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us — or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen — I hope sooner rather than later!
Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. … Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet…
The third wish is one closer to home. I’ve been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years — and half that time, I’ve been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country.
I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible.”

Arthur C. Clarke

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Life , Sadness , Peace , Hope

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

Arthur C. Clarke book The Light of Other Days

Source: The Light of Other Days (2000), Chapter 5

Guy

“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 book The City and the Stars

Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 23 (pp. 174-175)

Happiness

“Our age is in many ways unique, full of events and phenomena that never occurred before and can never happen again. They distort our thinking, making us believe that what is true now will be true forever, though perhaps on a larger scale. Because we have annihilated distance on this planet, we imagine that we can do it once again. The facts are otherwise, and we see them more clearly if we forget the present and turn our minds towards the past.”

Arthur C. Clarke

1960s, We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)

Imagination , Forgetting , Past , Thinking

“We have abolished space here on the little Earth; we can never abolish the space that yawns between the stars. Once again, as in the days when Homer sang, we are face-to-face with immensity and must accept its grandeur and terror, its inspiring possibilities and its dreadful restraints.”

Arthur C. Clarke

1960s, We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)

Star

“He had wished to convince himself that Comarre was evil. Now he knew that it was not. There would always be, even in Utopia, some for whom the world had nothing to offer but sorrow and disillusion.”

Arthur C. Clarke

The Lion of Comarre, p. 151
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

World , Evil

“News that is sufficiently bad somehow carries its own guarantee of truth. Only good reports need confirmation.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Breaking Strain

Breaking Strain, p. 170
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Truth , Bad luck

“A single neutron begins the chain-reaction that in an instant can destroy a million lives and the toil of generations. Equally insignificant and unimportant are the trigger-events which can sometimes change a man’s course of action and so alter the whole pattern of his future.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Breaking Strain

Breaking Strain, p. 181
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Future , Change

“Now there are some forms of apparel that may be worn or discarded as the fancy pleases with no other ill effects than a possible loss of social prestige. But spacesuits are not among them.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Breaking Strain

Breaking Strain, p. 184
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Loss

“The extremists in his movement had discredited themselves thoroughly, and it would be a long time before the world heard of them again.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Guardian Angel, p. 220
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

World , Time

“The future is built on the rubble of the past; wisdom lies in facing that fact, not in fighting against it.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 265
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Fight , Past , Future , Wisdom

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 269
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Personality , Love , Making love

“There are some things that no amount of pure intelligence can anticipate, but which can only be learned by bitter experience.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 284
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Intelligence , Learning

“It was good to be alive; it was better to be young; it was best of all to be in love.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 284
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Love , Making love

“Yet it was the impression that the unknown master has set out to create, Phoenix-like, from the dying embers of a great legend. He had captured, and held for all future ages to see, that beauty whose service is the purpose of life, and it sole justification.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 292
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Beauty , Life , Future , Age

“You won’t be an artist if you live a thousand years. You’re merely an expert, and you know it. Those who can—do, those who can’t—criticise.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 294
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

“Like the atom bomb, it arose out of equally academic research. Never, gentlemen, underestimate science. I doubt if there is a single field of study so theoretical, so remote from what is laughingly called everyday life, that it may not one day produce something that will shake the world.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Patent Pending

Patent Pending, p. 500
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

World , Science , Life , Study

“Captain Saunders, who came from Dallas and had no intention of being impressed by any prince, found himself unexpectedly moved by the wide, sad eyes. There were eyes that had seen too many receptions and parades, that had had to watch countless totally uninteresting things, that had never been allowed to stray far from the carefully planned official routes. Looking at that proud but weary face, Captain Saunders glimpsed for the first time the ultimate loneliness of royalty.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Patent Pending

Patent Pending, p. 508
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Sadness , Loneliness , Time

“For what is life but organized energy?”

Arthur C. Clarke

Out of the Sun, p. 656
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Life

“This sounded promising, and my coefficient of cupidity jumped several points.”

Arthur C. Clarke book I Remember Babylon

I Remember Babylon, p. 705
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

“There was nothing like a museum for calming the mind, for putting the problems of everyday life in their true perspective. Here, surrounded by the infinite variety and wonder of Nature, he was reminded of truths he had forgotten. He was only one of a million million creatures that shared this planet Earth. The entire human race, with its hopes and fears, its triumphs and its follies, might be no more than an incident in the history of the world.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Death and the Senator

Death and the Senator, p. 744
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Fear , History , Hope , Nature

“It is hardly necessary for me to say that I do not believe in the supernatural; everything that happened has a perfectly rational explanation, obvious to any man with the slightest knowledge of psychology.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Dog Star

Dog Star, p. 786
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Knowledge

“The idea of death was utterly incongruous—as it is to all men until the final second.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Maelstrom II, p. 789
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Idea , Death , Men

“Christine would surely be talking, even if she had only an ape as audience. To her, any silence was as great a challenge as a blank canvas; it had to be filled with the sound of her own voice.”

Arthur C. Clarke

An Ape About the House, p. 802
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Silence

“I am afraid that this chapter will amply demonstrate the truth of Clarke's 69th Law, viz., "Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software."”

Arthur C. Clarke

In both cases the cure is simple though usually very expensive.
"Appendix II: MITE for Morons," The Odyssey File (1984), p. 123
1960s, Clarke's Three Laws, et al (1962; 1973…)

Truth , Sex , Law , Reading

“There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End.”

Arthur C. Clarke

But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions — each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others — how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane. ...Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I'm afraid.
"God, Science, and Delusion: A Chat With Arthur C. Clarke" Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 19, Number 2 (Spring 1999) http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=clarke_19_2
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

Childhood

“I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer — one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.”

Arthur C. Clarke

2000s and posthumous publications, 90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Science , Imagination

“I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe — on the contrary!”

Arthur C. Clarke

2000s and posthumous publications, 90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Sleep , Time , Past , Future