The voices / 100 fragments

Arthur C. Clarke

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Archive entries

01Undated

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

02Undated

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

03Undated

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

04Undated

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

05Undated

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 / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

Humor was the enemy of desire.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

08Undated

He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

09Undated

One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

10Undated

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 / quote

11Undated

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 / quote

12Undated

My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelli

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

13Undated

He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

14Undated

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

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

15Undated

There were, however, a few exceptions.One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where it was hoped that a hyena would give him a rude awakening. For all practical purposes he could, therefore, be regarded as absent.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

16Undated

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

17Undated

How inappropriate to call this planet "Earth," when it is clearly "Ocean.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

18Undated

Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

19Undated

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 / quote

20Undated

1. 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.2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

21Undated

It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

22Undated

Meteorites don’t fall on the Earth. They fall on the Sun and the Earth gets in the way.” - John W. Campbell

Arthur C. Clarke / quote

23Undated

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 / quote

24Undated

…once science had declared a thing possible, there was no escape from its eventual realization…

Arthur C. Clarke / quote