Quote

I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long.

Arthur C. Clarke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Never
Stars
Commonplace
Think
Waiting
Pardon
Thinking
Look
Wondering
Emissaries
Without
Clouds
Banked
Nothing
Wait
Milky
Looks
Coming
Simile
Long
Fire
Alarm
Way
Wonder
Alarms

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

Image
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Why, Robert Singh often wondered, did we give our hearts to friends whose life spans are so much shorter than our own?
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Guns are the crutches of the impotent.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
The future is not to be forecast, but created.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
It was a pity that there was no radar to guide one across the trackless seas of life. Every man had to find his own way, steered by some secret compass of the soul. And sometimes, late or early, the compass lost its power and spun aimlessly on its bearings. Alan Bishop
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Science is the only religion of mankind.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Science fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in 'Childhood's End.' But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
If such a thing had happened once, it must surely have happened many times in this galaxy of a hundred billion suns.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
There's a passage about 'rivers of molten rock that wound their way... until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth.' That's a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
Image
Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. The only place success comes before work is a dictionary Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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