Quote

If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs-those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures-then we may be certain of this: for all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean- 'spaceship.'

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
Men
Word
Dawn
Spaceship
History
Instant
Spaceships
Often
Near
Survives
Nature
Creatures
Dinosaurs
Certain
Moon
Brief
May
Walking
Failures
Mean
Least
Ship
Long
Successful
Ships
Deride

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

Image
God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
Image
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from birth to death, we wear the water-filled space suits of our skins.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
Image
We always thought the living Earth was a thing of beauty. It isn’t. Life has had to learn to defend itself against the planet’s random geological savagery.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible-indeed, inevitable-the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Once you can reproduce a phenomenon, you are well on the way to understanding it.
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
But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.
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
I'm quite fond of the writer who told a beginning author, If you've got a message, use Western Union.
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
There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Isaac Asimov is, in reality, based on something I had invented a few years previously.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
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