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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

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Arthur C. Clarke
Age: 90 †
Born: 1917
Born: December 16
Died: 2008
Died: March 19
Engineer
Explorer
Film Writer
Inventor
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Minehead
Somerset
Arthur Charles Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke
Charles Willis
Arthur Clarke
Good
Along
Worth
Probably
Knew
Idea
Three
Ideas
Pass
Done
Periods

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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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
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I think in the long run the money that s been put into the space program is one of the best investments this country has ever made . . .This is a downpayment on the future of mankind. It's as simple as that.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Attempting to define science fiction is an undertaking almost as difficult, though not so popular, as trying to define pornography... In both pornography and SF, the problem lies in knowing exactly where to draw the line.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Isaac Asimov is, in reality, based on something I had invented a few years previously.
Arthur C. Clarke
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. . . 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
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Training was one thing, reality another.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Look, whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.) Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
Arthur C. Clarke