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

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

Image
The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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
Image
I don't think there is such a thing as as a real prophet. You can never predict the future. We know why now, of course chaos theory, which I got very interested in, shows you can never predict the future.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
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
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
I will not be afraid because I understand ... And understanding is happiness.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' The universe ceased to exist.
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
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
Image
You don't believe in organized religion, yet a major theme in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God.
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
I'm sure we would not have had men on the Moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I'm rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
No one of intelligence resents the inevitable.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
If children have interests, then education happens.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
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