110+ Arthur C. Clarke Quotes On Death, Technology And Magic

Arthur C. Clarke was an English writer and futurist. He is best known for his science fiction works, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for his non-fiction predictions of space travel and communication satellites. He was also a science writer, inventor, and undersea explorer who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Arthur C. Clarke on death, technology, magic.

Top 10 Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

1. I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.
2. The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.
3. The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
4. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
5. One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
6. The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.
7. There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
8. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
9. I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.
10. Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Arthur C. Clarke Image Quotes

The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them. — Arthur C. Clarke

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. — Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Short Quotes

• Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
• I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.
• It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
• A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
• Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.
• Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.
• It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.
• Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
• Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.
• The only real problem in life is what to do next.

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Death

I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. — Arthur C. Clarke

We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from birth to death, we wear the water-filled space suits of our skins. — Arthur C. Clarke

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do? — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Technology

Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all. — Arthur C. Clarke

We over estimate technology in the short term and under estimate technology in the long term. — Arthur C. Clarke

Only small minds are impressed by large numbers. — Arthur C. Clarke

No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens. — Arthur C. Clarke

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society. — Arthur C. Clarke

I'm surprised at some technological development, and the realization that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think the CD-ROM is the best example of that. The idea of having a whole symphony, or opera, or novel in a little piece of plastic is pretty amazing. — Arthur C. Clarke

The difference between machines and human beings is that human beings can be reproduced by unskilled labour. — Arthur C. Clarke

Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows 95 from my hard drive. — Arthur C. Clarke

Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties are, if it is desired greatly enough. — Arthur C. Clarke

The information age has been driven and dominated by technopreneurs. We now have to apply these technologies in saving lives, improving livelihoods and lifting millions of people out of squalor, misery and suffering. In other words, our focus must now move from the geeks to the meek. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Imaginative

We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish. — Arthur C. Clarke

... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists. — Arthur C. Clarke

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. — Arthur C. Clarke

Floyd could imagine a dozen things that could go wrong; it was little consolation that it was always the thirteenth that actually happened. — Arthur C. Clarke

I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well. — Arthur C. Clarke

At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years. — Arthur C. Clarke

When you finally understand the universe, it will not only be stranger than you imagine, it will be stranger than you can imagine. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Impossible

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke

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

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong. — Arthur C. Clarke

It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke

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

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Idea

Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas. — Arthur C. Clarke

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along! — Arthur C. Clarke

People go through four stages before any revolutionary development: 1. It's nonsense, don't waste my time. 2. It's interesting, but not important. 3. I always said it was a good idea. 4. I thought of it first. — Arthur C. Clarke

When I start on a book, I have been thinking about it and making occasional notes for some time... So I have lots of theme, locale, subjects and technical ideas... I don't worry about long periods of not doing anything. I know my subconscious is busy. — Arthur C. Clarke

We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 - and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20? — Arthur C. Clarke

. . . Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy--of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity. — Arthur C. Clarke

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. — Arthur C. Clarke

A single test which proves some piece of theory wrong is more valuable than a hundred tests showing that idea might be true. — Arthur C. Clarke

'The Devil in the Dark' impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction then and now, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Quotes About Science

Using material ferried up by rockets, it would be possible to construct a "space station" in ... orbit. The station could be provided with living quarters, laboratories and everything needed for the comfort of its crew, who would be relieved and provisioned by a regular rocket service. (1945) — Arthur C. Clarke

As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying. — Arthur C. Clarke

Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. — Arthur C. Clarke

The inspirational value of the space program is probably of far greater importance to education than any input of dollars... A whole generation is growing up which has been attracted to the hard disciplines of science and engineering by the romance of space. — Arthur C. Clarke

In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. [dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three] — Arthur C. Clarke

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run-and often in the short one-the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative. — Arthur C. Clarke

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. — Arthur C. Clarke

In the long run, there are no secrets. in science. The universe will not cooperate in a cover-up. — Arthur C. Clarke

Open the pod bay doors, Hal. — Arthur C. Clarke

One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. — Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke Famous Quotes And Sayings

The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them. — Arthur C. Clarke

In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy. — Arthur C. Clarke

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. — Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. — Arthur C. Clarke

A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a ‘meaning’ as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play. — Arthur C. Clarke

The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past. — Arthur C. Clarke

Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of god a pretty good definition of insanity? — Arthur C. Clarke

You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself. — Arthur C. Clarke

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. — Arthur C. Clarke

A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible-indeed, inevitable-the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody. — Arthur C. Clarke

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. — Arthur C. Clarke

Across the gulf of centuries, the blind smile of Homer is turned upon our age. Along the echoing corridors of time, the roar of the rockets merges now with the creak of the wind-taut rigging. For somewhere in the world today, still unconscious of his destiny, walks the boy who will be the first Odysseus of the Age of Space. — Arthur C. Clarke

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. — Arthur C. Clarke

After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would aways be a secret bond between them---not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring. — Arthur C. Clarke

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all. — Arthur C. Clarke

It was a pity that there was no radar to guide one across the trackless seas of life. Every man had to find his own way, steered by some secret compass of the soul. And sometimes, late or early, the compass lost its power and spun aimlessly on its bearings. Alan Bishop — Arthur C. Clarke

There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them. — Arthur C. Clarke

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power. — Arthur C. Clarke

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. — Arthur C. Clarke

They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed. — Arthur C. Clarke

I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. — Arthur C. Clarke

Somewhere in me is a curiosity sensor. I want to know what's over the next hill. You know, people can live longer without food than without information. Without information, you'd go crazy. — Arthur C. Clarke

The realisation that our small planet is only one of many worlds gives mankind the perspective it needs to realise sooner that our own world belongs to all its creatures. — Arthur C. Clarke

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it. — Arthur C. Clarke

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. — Arthur C. Clarke

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. — Arthur C. Clarke

Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts. — Arthur C. Clarke

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. — Arthur C. Clarke

Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction. — Arthur C. Clarke

Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence — Arthur C. Clarke

He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand. — Arthur C. Clarke

. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull. — Arthur C. Clarke

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. — Arthur C. Clarke

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could. — Arthur C. Clarke

The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium. — Arthur C. Clarke

Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here. Well, it can't hide forever - one day we will overhear it. — Arthur C. Clarke

Before the current decade ends, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing suborbital flights aboard privately funded vehicles. . . . It won't be too long before bright young men and women set their eyes on careers in Earth orbit and say: "I want to work 200 kilometers from home-straight up!" — Arthur C. Clarke

No one of intelligence resents the inevitable. — Arthur C. Clarke

As his body became more and more defenseless, so his means of offense became steadily more frightful. — Arthur C. Clarke

The Earth would only have to move a few million kilometers sunward-or starward-for the delicate balance of climate to be destroyed. The Antarctic icecap would melt and flood all low-lying land; or the oceans would freeze and the whole world would be locked in eternal winter. Just a nudge in either direction would be enough. — Arthur C. Clarke

The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion. — Arthur C. Clarke

One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships. — Arthur C. Clarke

To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea. — Arthur C. Clarke

I believe any malevolent supercivilisation would have rapidly self-destructed as we may be in the process of doing ourselves. If we do have contact, physical contact with aliens, I think it will be benign. — Arthur C. Clarke

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is a frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software. — Arthur C. Clarke

Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many. — Arthur C. Clarke

I'm sure we would not have had men on the Moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I'm rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books. — 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

All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe. — Arthur C. Clarke

Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom. — Arthur C. Clarke

Moses Kaldor had always loved mountains; they made him feel nearer to the God whose nonexistence he still sometimes resented. — Arthur C. Clarke

Deep beneath the surface of the Sun, enormous forces were gathering. At any moment, the energies of a million hydrogen bombs might burst forth in the awesome explosion.... Climbing at millions of miles per hour, an invisible fireball many times the size of Earth would leap from the Sun and head out across space. — Arthur C. Clarke

Why, Robert Singh often wondered, did we give our hearts to friends whose life spans are so much shorter than our own? — Arthur C. Clarke

The rash assertion that "God made man in His own image" is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths. — Arthur C. Clarke

There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded. — Arthur C. Clarke

When the Sun shrinks to a dull red dwarf, it will not be dying. It will just be starting to live and everything that has gone before will merely be a prelude to its real history. — Arthur C. Clarke

Science fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future. — Arthur C. Clarke

My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion to ultimate truth that it represents. — Arthur C. Clarke

If such a thing had happened once, it must surely have happened many times in this galaxy of a hundred billion suns. — Arthur C. Clarke

The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children. — Arthur C. Clarke

Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it. — Arthur C. Clarke

What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities. — Arthur C. Clarke

I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behavior at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me. — Arthur C. Clarke

Good morning, Dr. Chandra. This is Hal. I am ready for my first lesson. — Arthur C. Clarke

The exploration of the planets is now closer to us in time than the exploration of Africa by Stanley and Livingstone. — Arthur C. Clarke

The entire sweep of human history from the dark ages into the unknown future was considerably less important at the moment than the question of a certain girl and her feelings toward him. — Arthur C. Clarke

There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in 'Childhood's End.' But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. — Arthur C. Clarke

What is becoming more interesting than the myths themselves has been the study of how the myths were constructed from sparse or unpromising facts indeed, sometimes from no facts in a kind of mute conspiracy of longing, very rarely under anybody's conscious control. — Arthur C. Clarke

Life Lessons by Arthur C. Clarke

1. Arthur C. Clarke taught us to be open to new ideas and to think outside the box, as he was a visionary who pushed the boundaries of science fiction.
2. He also encouraged us to take risks and to never give up on our dreams, no matter how difficult the journey may be.
3. Lastly, he taught us to embrace change and to always remain curious and inquisitive, as curiosity is the key to unlocking our greatest potential.