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Arthur C. Clarke citations
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Arthur Charles Clarke, ou Arthur C. Clarke, né le 16 décembre 1917 à Minehead dans le Somerset au Royaume-Uni et mort le 19 mars 2008 à Colombo au Sri Lanka, est un écrivain de science-fiction, écrivain scientifique, futurologue, présentateur télé, explorateur sous-marin et inventeur britannique.

Il a utilisé des pseudonymes comme Charles Willis et E.G. O'Brien.

✵ 16. décembre 1917 – 19. mars 2008   •   Autres noms Arthur Charles Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke: 224   citations 0   J'aime

Arthur C. Clarke citations célèbres

“C'est donc la fin de l'homme, songea Jan avec une résignation au-delà de la tristesse. Une fin qu'aucun prophète n'avait jamais annoncée, une fin désavouant aussi bien l'optimisme que le pessimisme.
Et néanmoins appropriée : elle avait la sublime inéluctabilité d'un grandiose chef-d'œuvre. Jan avait eu un fugitif aperçu du cosmos et de sa terrifiante immensité, et il savait désormais que l'homme n'y avait pas sa place. Il comprenait enfin la vanité ultime de l'utopie qui l'avait leurré. Il avait rêvé des étoiles. Or, la route qui conduisait aux étoiles bifurquait et la destination à laquelle menait chacune de ses branches était étrangère aux espoirs comme aux craintes des humains.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Les Enfants d'Icare (1953)

“De tous les grands félins, et peut-être de tous les mammifères, le tigre du Bengale est le plus beau.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Le Marteau de Dieu (1993)

“Si vous me pardonnez cette plate comparaison, nous avons déclenché l'alerte à l'incendie et nous n'avons plus qu'à attendre les pompiers. Je ne pense d'ailleurs pas que nous ayons longtemps à attendre.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

“La pyramide trônait sur ce plateau creusé dans la montagne avant que la vie soit née dans les eaux de la Terre.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

“D'être venu peut-être cent millions d'années trop tard ne me contrariait pas; c'était déjà bien assez d'être venu, tout simplement.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, [Sentinelle]La sentinelle, 1951

“C'était un phare qui tout au long des âges avait signalé patiemment que personne ne l'avaient encore découvert.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

Arthur C. Clarke Citations

“Sur la Lune, bien sûr, la distance ne fait pas disparaitre les détails… il n'existe rien de semblable à cette vapeur presque imperceptible qui adoucit et parfois transforme toutes choses lointaines sur la Terre.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

distance

“C'est une idée cruelle, mais vous devez la regarder en face. Peut-être votre domination s'étendra-t-elle un jour sur les planètes. Mais les étoiles ne sont pas pour l'Homme.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Les Enfants d'Icare (1953)

idée , hommes

“En vérité la permissivité en matière sexuelle, proche de celle de l'Hindouisme, constituait l'une des différences les plus marquantes entre le Chrislamisme et les religions dont il était issu. Il lui dut certainement une grande part de sa popularité, tant était grand le contraste avec le puritanisme islamique et la morale maladive du Christianisme qui empoisonna la vie de milliards d'hommes et aboutit à cette perversion qu'est le célibat.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Le Marteau de Dieu (1993)

vie , hommes , vérité , religion

“Pourquoi mettent-ils en œuvre des accélérations aussi colossales alors qu'ils ont tout l'espace à leur disposition et qu'ils pourraient prendre tout leur temps pour atteindre leur vitesse de croisière? Ma théorie est la suivante : ils captent d'une façon ou d'une autre l'énergie de champ qui enveloppe les étoiles, ce qui les oblige à effectuer leurs manœuvres de démarrage et d'arrêt à proximité immédiate d'un soleil. Mais tout cela est secondaire…”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Les Enfants d'Icare (1953)

temps , soleil , vitesse

“Je compris alors que je me trouvais devant une chose que rien n'aurait pu égaler dans l'antiquité de ma propre race. Ce n'était pas une bâtisse, mais une machine, qui se défendait au moyen de forces qui défiaient l’Éternité.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

“Les plus célèbres merveilles de Mars étaient tellement gigantesques qu'on ne pouvait les admirer vraiment que de l'espace.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Le Marteau de Dieu (1993)

“[…] Voici maintenant venu le temps de reconnaître une faute plus tragique encore. Le refus obstiné de l'Église d'accepter les moyens artificiels de limitation des naissances a gâché des milliards de vies et, ironie du sort, a encouragé les familles trop pauvre pour nourrir les enfants qu'on les obligeait à mettre au monde, à recourir au péché d'avortement.
Cette politique a conduit notre espèce au bord du gouffre. La surpopulation a épuisé les ressources de la planète Terre et pollué tout notre environnement. Dès la fin du XX”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Le Marteau de Dieu (1993)

naissance , sortie , faute , temps

“Dans le premier enthousiasme de ma découverte, j'avais admis sans discussion que cette construction cristalline était le fait d'une race appartenant au passé lointain de la Lune, mais soudain et avec une force implacable, je fus persuadé que cette race était tout aussi étrangère à la Lune que moi-même.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses nouvelles, La sentinelle, 1951

“Les préjugés et les tabous liés à la nourriture régissent fortement le comportement humain et la logique s'avère souvent impuissante à les vaincre. Recycler des excréments dans les champs, en plein air, en les purifiant grâce aux rayons du Soleil, passe encore; mais le faire chez soi, à l'aide de mystérieux appareils électriques, pas question. Pendant des années, les ingénieurs de Fuller argumentèrent en vain :
— Dieu Lui-même serait incapable de voir la différence entre deux atomes de carbone.
Pourtant, la plupart des gens étaient convaincus d'en être capables, eux.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Citations de ses romans, Le Marteau de Dieu (1993)

soleil , Dieu , nourriture , comportement

“On a tendance à nous confondre parce que nous sommes tous deux des auteurs de textes cérébraux où les concepts scientifiques comptent plus que l'action proprement dite.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Ils ont dit, Isaac Asimov

“L’audace—toujours l’audace!”

Arthur C. Clarke

2010: Odyssey Two

Arthur C. Clarke: Citations en anglais

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

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

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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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

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

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Arthur C. Clarke livre 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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

“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.”

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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

“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.”

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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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Light of Other Days

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

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

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

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

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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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The City and the Stars

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

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

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

“All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

2010: Odyssey Two (1982)
1980s

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Fountains of Paradise

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The City and the Stars

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

Space and the Spirit of Man (1965)

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

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

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The Light of Other Days

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre The City and the Stars

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

“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre Glide Path

Glide Path (1963) Chapter 27
1960s

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke

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

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

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Arthur C. Clarke livre Breaking Strain

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

“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.”

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Arthur C. Clarke livre Breaking Strain

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

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