Quote

The numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.

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
May
Number
Hijacking
Ever
Mankind
Distinct
Human
Numbers
Societies
Humans
Present
Twice
Men
Race
Total
Time
Greater
Tragedy
Nations
Morality
Age
Lived

More quotes by Arthur C. Clarke

Image
If the house is to be demolished tomorrow anyhow, people seem to feel, we may as well burn the furniture today. None of our problems are insoluble... But it seems clear that to prevail we humans will have to act with a smartness and selflessness that has so far eluded us during our long and tangled history.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
'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
Image
There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them.
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
Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Science is the only religion of mankind.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Why, Robert Singh often wondered, did we give our hearts to friends whose life spans are so much shorter than our own?
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.
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
The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Only small minds are impressed by large numbers.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing.
Arthur C. Clarke
Image
Isaac Asimov is, in reality, based on something I had invented a few years previously.
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
Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said 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