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The creation of wealth is certainly not to be despised, but in the long run the only human activities really worthwhile are the search for knowledge, and the creation of beauty. This is beyond argument, the only point of debate is which comes first.

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
Human
Beyond
Activities
Humans
Wealth
Worthwhile
First
Beauty
Search
Long
Knowledge
Debate
Really
Point
Argument
Comes
Certainly
Running
Activity
Firsts
Creation
Despised

More quotes by 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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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 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
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The moment when one first meets a great work of art has an impact that can never again be recaptured.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Religion is a byproduct of fear.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?
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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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
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Humor was the enemy of desire.
Arthur C. Clarke
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No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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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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
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Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.
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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And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Now I'm a scientific expert that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.
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