Arthur C. Clarke: Doing

Arthur C. Clarke was British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. Explore interesting quotes on doing.

Arthur C. Clarke: 414 quotes13 likes

“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.”

Arthur C. Clarke

“Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore or library, I am overwhelmed by all the things that I do not know. Then I am seized by a powerful desire to read all the books, one by one.”

Arthur C. Clarke

“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

“The Ramans do everything in threes.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama (1972)
1970s

“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

“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

“Long ago, he had made that choice between work and life that can seldom be avoided at the highest levels of human endeavor … Any fool could shuffle genes, and most did. But whether or not history gave him credit, few men could have achieved what he had done — and was about to do.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise

Source: The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Chapter 39 “The Wounded Sun” (p. 208)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“It is surprising how long it takes to do a simple addition when your life depends on the answer.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Breaking Strain

Breaking Strain, p. 172
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

“I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have broken the glass of the fire-alarm and have nothing to do but to wait.
I do not think we will have to wait for long”

Arthur C. Clarke

"The Sentinel" (1948), originally titled "Sentinel of Eternity" this is the short story which later provided the fundamental ideas for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) written by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. Full text in 10 Story Fantasy, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1951), p. 41 https://archive.org/details/10_Story_Fantasy_v01n01_1951-Spring_Tawrast-EXciter/page/n39. Two versions of the next to the last sentence have been widely published since at least 1951, the other being: "If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait." <br class="br">1940s

“That’s what I think they’re doing, eating themselves alive. They murder in the name of God and blindly destroy the very ecosystem that sustains them.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Richter 10

“People are people.” Bert shrugged.
“What you’re really saying is that people are animals,” Crane replied. “And I say to you, it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make a civilization, a real civilization, built on real understanding of ourselves and our universe.”
Source: 1990s, Richter 10 (1996), Chapter 20, “Shimani-Gashi” (p. 362)

“Of course, we in the so-called developed countries thought we were civilized. At least war wasn't respectable any more, and the United Nations was always doing its best to stop the wars that did break out. Not very successfully: I'd give it about three out of ten...”

Arthur C. Clarke

1990s, 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

“Maybe it’s a mark of a maturing culture, do you think, that secrets aren’t kept, that truth is told, that things are talked out?”

Arthur C. Clarke A Time Odyssey

Source: 2000s and posthumous publications, A Time Odyssey, Firstborn (2007), Chapter 49, “Areosynchronous” (p. 313)

“You do realize how many impossible things have to be true for that to have happened?”

Arthur C. Clarke A Time Odyssey

Source: 2000s and posthumous publications, A Time Odyssey, Firstborn (2007), Chapter 29, “Alexei” (p. 187)