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.Collection: Alone
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.Collection: History
Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.Collection: Computers
The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.Collection: Inspirational
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.Collection: Society
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Future
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!Collection: Imagination
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Space
I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Patriotism
I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.Collection: Politics
Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.Collection: Nature
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.Collection: Best
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.Collection: Funny
It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.Collection: God
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.Collection: Technology
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.Collection: Science
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.Collection: Nature
I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
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.
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?
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.
The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Loving Life
The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.Collection: Motivational
If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.Collection: Men
The future is not to be forecast, but created.Collection: Forecasts
One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.Collection: Atheist
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.Collection: Learning
I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.Collection: Science
The difference between machines and human beings is that human beings can be reproduced by unskilled labour.Collection: Technology
Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas.Collection: Character
The only real problem in life is what to do next.Collection: Life
I have never grown up, but I will never stop growing.Collection: Growing
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.Collection: Teacher
Getting information from the internet is like getting a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.Collection: Fall
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.Collection: Intellectual
The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.Collection: Depressing
The one fact about the future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic.Collection: Facts
The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.Collection: Play
A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.Collection: Book
Only feeble minds are paralyzed by facts.Collection: Mind
You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.Collection: Fashion
Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathologicalCollection: Behavior
There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.Collection: Real