“We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ... The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation ... the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.”

Source: Exploration of Space (1952)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 6, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return ... The coming of …" by Arthur C. Clarke?
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke 207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… 1917–2008

Related quotes

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return …”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Exploration of Space (1952)
1950s
Context: We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return … The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation … the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.

José Hermano Saraiva photo

“That made the portuguese this type that we are. We don't have any race. There can be no talk about a portuguese race. If there was a race, we would be an anti-race. Composed of the people coming from all over during millions of years.”

José Hermano Saraiva (1919–2012) Historian, Jurist, Politician

Original: (pt) Isso fez do português este tipo que nós somos. Nós não temos raça nenhuma. Não se pode falar na raça portuguesa. Se houvesse uma raça, nós éramos uma anti-raça. Feita com gente vinda de toda a parte ao longo de milhões de anos.
Source: "História Essencial de Portugal", episode 1

Jimmy Carter photo

“We are at a turning point in our history.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Presidency (1977–1981), The Crisis of Confidence (1979)
Context: We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.
We ourselves are the same Americans who just 10 years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America.
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self- interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.
Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this Nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our Nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Theodore Roszak photo

“Until we have freed our minds and emotions of the hidden presuppositions that stand between us and the world, we can never be certain we are in touch with reality.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999)
Context: Here, at the birth of modern science, is a fundamental insight. Our knowledge of nature Out There begins with knowledge of ourselves In Here. Until we have freed our minds and emotions of the hidden presuppositions that stand between us and the world, we can never be certain we are in touch with reality.

Afterword: The Idols of the Bedchamber

Abraham Lincoln photo

“There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as an equal… Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the Negro in the tropics and give him our language, literature, religion, and system of government under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal Union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This is from a fictional speech by Lincoln which occurs in The Clansman : An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) by Thomas Dixon, Jr.. On some sites this has been declared to be something Lincoln said "soon after signing" the Emancipation Proclamation, but without any date or other indications of to whom it was stated, and there are no actual historical records of Lincoln ever saying this.
Misattributed

Winston S. Churchill photo

“We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward cross the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Zurich University (September 19, 1946) ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/astonish.html) ( http://www.peshawar.ch/varia/winston.htm).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

J. Howard Moore photo

“Sometimes, in our littleness, we boast of the progress we have made, and of the knowledge, culture, and art which we as a race to-day display. But, O, it is the vanity of Adolescence. What will the knowledge, culture, and art of to-day amount to fifty or a hundred thousand years from now?—or a million years from now?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Nothing! This sphere, with its clinging tenantry, will still be here then and will still be making its annual journeys round the sun, as now. But, O, what mighty and ineffable changes! The things of to-day will be so rude and childish and so far away that they will not even be considered.
Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The World to Be, p. 149

John F. Kennedy photo
Rudyard Kipling photo

“It was our fault, and our very great fault—and now we must turn it to use.
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

The Lesson, Stanza 8 (1899-1902).
Other works

Related topics