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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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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
Problem
Commodity
Terrestrial
May
Wilderness
Proclaimed
Many
Mankind
Vanishing
Going
Problems
Pressing
Long
System
Solar
World
Space
Predictions
Lying
Solved
Future
Preservation
Thoreau

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.
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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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One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.
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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. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Only small minds are impressed by large numbers.
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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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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The only real problem in life is what to do next.
Arthur C. Clarke
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We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 - and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20?
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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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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Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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 best proof of intelligent life in space is that it hasn't come here.
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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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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Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.
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