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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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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
Away
Value
Crossings
May
Needed
Rockets
Much
Present
Civilisation
Outwards
Mind
Turn
Preserve
Squabbles
Men
Space
Preserves
Destroyers
Turns
Provide
Tribal
Values
Safety
Rocket
Sense
Minds
Crossing

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, If you've got a message, use Western Union.
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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God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Only small minds are impressed by large numbers.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence
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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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
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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
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If I didn't exist, I would have invented myself.
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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A wise man once said that all human activity is a form of play. And the highest form of play is the search for Truth, Beauty and Love. What more is needed? Should there be a ‘meaning’ as well, that will be a bonus? If we waste time looking for life’s meaning, we may have no time to live — or to play.
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 exploration of the planets is now closer to us in time than the exploration of Africa by Stanley and Livingstone.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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'2001' was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history we are sundered from it forever by the moment when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out on to the Sea of Tranquility. Now history and fiction have become inexorably intertwined.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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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The truth, as always, will be far stranger.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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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In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. [dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]
Arthur C. Clarke