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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

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

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

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I will not be afraid because I understand ... And understanding is happiness.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.
Arthur C. Clarke
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I sometimes think that the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers.
Arthur C. Clarke
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But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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
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Before the current decade ends, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing suborbital flights aboard privately funded vehicles. . . . It won't be too long before bright young men and women set their eyes on careers in Earth orbit and say: I want to work 200 kilometers from home-straight up!
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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Deep beneath the surface of the Sun, enormous forces were gathering. At any moment, the energies of a million hydrogen bombs might burst forth in the awesome explosion.... Climbing at millions of miles per hour, an invisible fireball many times the size of Earth would leap from the Sun and head out across space.
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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What we need is a machine that will let us see the other guy's point of view.
Arthur C. Clarke
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If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.
Arthur C. Clarke
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They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence their experiments did not always succeed.
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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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
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A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
Arthur C. Clarke
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... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.
Arthur C. Clarke
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If children have interests, then education happens.
Arthur C. Clarke
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The entire sweep of human history from the dark ages into the unknown future was considerably less important at the moment than the question of a certain girl and her feelings toward him.
Arthur C. Clarke