“The idea of death was utterly incongruous—as it is to all men until the final second.”
Maelstrom II, p. 789
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Arthur C. Clarke 207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… 1917–2008Related quotes

in (1967), as quoted in Andrew Sinclair's Viva Che!: The Strange Death and Life of Che Guevara

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 170.

“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.”
somos todos mortales hasta el primer beso y el segundo vaso
The Book of Embraces (1991)

Speech to Conservative Central Council ("The Historic Choice") (20 March 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102990
Leader of the Opposition
Context: Every step this Socialist Government takes to seize more power over our daily lives diminishes those lives and the freedom which is their essence and their strength. One of our principal and continuing priorities when we are returned to office will be to restore the freedoms which the Socialists have usurped. Let them learn that it is not a function of the State to possess as much as possible. It is not a function of the State to grab as much as it can get away with. It is not a function of the State to act as ring-master, to crack the whip, dictate the load which all of us must carry or say how high we may climb. It is not a function of the State to ensure that no-one climbs higher than anyone else. All that is the philosophy of Socialism. We reject it utterly for, however well-intended, it leads in one direction only: to the erosion and finally the destruction of the democratic way of life.

Journals of Søren Kierkegaard 1A75, 1835
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

"On The Natural Inequality of Men" (January 1890)
1890s

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)
Context: If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.