Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRASwas a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 December 1917
Arthur C. Clarke quotes about
thinking play evil
I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development. I think that religion may be some random by-product of mammalian reproduction. If that's true, would non-mammalian aliens have a religion?
stars thinking clouds
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.
believe thinking self
I believe any malevolent supercivilisation would have rapidly self-destructed as we may be in the process of doing ourselves. If we do have contact, physical contact with aliens, I think it will be benign.
science thinking ideas
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
baby men thinking
Since women are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can't think of it.
book thinking ideas
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.
relationship secret encounters
After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would aways be a secret bond between them---not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring.
art rocks dragons
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.
life time dark
I sometimes wonder how we spent leisure time before satellite television and Internet came along…and then I realise that I have spent more than half of my life in the ‘dark ages’!
careers space imagination
I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.
zero honesty funny-life
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
science may lasts
Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
communication technology important
No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.
mind matter should
Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?