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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
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

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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
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If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run-and often in the short one-the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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... chemistry is a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists.
Arthur C. Clarke
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My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion to ultimate truth that it represents.
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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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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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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Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference we should each be treated with appropriate respect.
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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The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
Arthur C. Clarke
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He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.
Arthur C. Clarke
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Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias - boredom.
Arthur C. Clarke
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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
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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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Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.
Arthur C. Clarke
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A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.
Arthur C. Clarke
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If I didn't exist, I would have invented myself.
Arthur C. Clarke
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I have never grown up, but I will never stop growing.
Arthur C. Clarke
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I will not be afraid because I understand ... And understanding is happiness.
Arthur C. Clarke