Arthur C. Clarke Quotes
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This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.
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The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.
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If the house is to be demolished tomorrow anyhow, people seem to feel, we may as well burn the furniture today. None of our problems are insoluble...But it seems clear that to prevail we humans will have to act with a smartness and selflessness that has so far eluded us during our long and tangled history.
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It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
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All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
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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 set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long
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He had discharged his destiny; now, perhaps, he could begin to live.
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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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The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But it is vital to remember that information - in the sense of raw data - is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these.
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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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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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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.
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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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There was no substitute for reality; one should be aware of imitations.
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Khedron was content with the order of things as it was. True, he might upset that order from time to time-but only by a little. He was a critic, not a revolutionary. On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples; he shrank from diverting its course.
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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!
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Others, one suspects, are afraid that the crossing of space, and above all contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith. They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination - for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
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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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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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Perhaps our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create Him.
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The Ramans do everything in threes.
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If the artist did not know his goal, even the most miraculous of tools could not find it for him.
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Somewhere back at the beginning I was chosen to be Jester, and there is only one Jester at a time in Diaspar. Most people think that is one too many.
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There was only one thing of which he could be certain now. Boredom would not be a serious problem for a considerable time to come.