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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

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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
Whatever
Powers
Universe
Subject
Nature
Fate
Human
Subjects
Humans
Plans
Behinds
Revision
Behind
Preferred
Call
Ruthless

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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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
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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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In this single galaxy of ours there are eighty-seven thousand million suns. [...] In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world. [...] It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Many, and some of the most pressing, of our terrestrial problems can be solved only by going into space. Long before it was a vanishing commodity, the wilderness as the preservation of the world was proclaimed by Thoreau. In the new wilderness of the Solar System may lie the future preservation of mankind.
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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But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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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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
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Guns are the crutches of the impotent.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.
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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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
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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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Science fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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Until we get rid of religion, we won't be able to conduct the search for God.
Arthur C. Clarke
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How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
Arthur C. Clarke
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What we need is a machine that will let us see the other guy's point of view.
Arthur C. Clarke
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I don't think there is such a thing as as a real prophet. You can never predict the future. We know why now, of course chaos theory, which I got very interested in, shows you can never predict the future.
Arthur C. Clarke