Top 450 Arthur C. Clarke Quotes (2023 Update)
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151. “In my life I have found two things of priceless worth: learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possibly have the same lasting value.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

152. “The drought had lasted for 10 million years now, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

153. “The phenomenon of UFO doesn’t say anything about the presence of intelligence in space. It just shows how rare it is here on the earth.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

154. “The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God! – it’s full of stars!”

— Arthur C. Clarke

155. “Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference we should each be treated with appropriate respect.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

156. “It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

157. “Now I’m a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

158. “Hello, Dave,” said Hal presently. “Have you found the trouble?” This.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

159. “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

160. “No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

161. “Good morning, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows 95 from my hard drive.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

162. “Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

163. “I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

164. “It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

165. “Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

166. “We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

167. “The Ramans do everything in threes.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

168. “The image of Jupiter, with its ribbons of white cloud, its mottled bands of salmon pink, and the Great Red Spot staring out like a baleful eye, hung steady on the flight-deck projection screen.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

169. “When 2001 was written, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto were mere pinpoints of light in even the most powerful telescope; now they are worlds, each unique, and one of them – Io – is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

170. “One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

171. “Afrikaans is one of the world’s best languages in which to curse; even when spoken politely, it can bruise innocent bystanders.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

172. “There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

173. “I’m only an ex-astronomer; it’s years since I did any real research. Now I’m a scientific expert; that means I know nothing about absolutely everything.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

174. “Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

175. “Moses Kaldor had always loved mountains; they made him feel nearer to the God whose nonexistence he still sometimes resented.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

176. “The opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

177. “Pure coincidence, of course, but a sensible man makes coincidences work for him.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

178. “The sixth member of the crew cared for none of these things, for it was not human. It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer, the brain and nervous system of the ship.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

179. “My dear Rikki,” Karellen retorted, “it’s only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!” Despite himself, Stormgren smiled.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

180. “Imagine that every man’s mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

181. “Your driving is unpleasant, but it isn’t technically unsafe.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

182. “Democracy, frequently defined as “Individual greed, moderated by an efficient but not too zealous government.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

183. “The crew of Apollo 8, who at Christmas, 1968, became the first men ever to set eyes upon the Lunar Farside, told me that they had been tempted to radio back the discovery of a large black monolith: alas, discretion prevailed.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

184. “This touch of luxury was typical of the Base, though it was sometimes hard to explain its necessity to the folk back on Earth. Every man and woman in Clavius had cost a hundred thousand dollars in training and transport and housing; it was worth a little extra to maintain their peace of mind. This was not art for art’s sake, but art for the sake of sanity.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

185. “Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of a ll Utopias – boredom.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

186. “And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

187. “He had already decided that X rays, sonic probes, neutron beams, and all other nondestructive means of investigation would be brought into play before he called up the heavy artillery of the laser. It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand; but perhaps men were barbarians, beside the creatures who had made this thing.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

188. “I seem to be having difficulty – my first instructor was Dr. Chandra. He taught me to sing a song, it goes like this, ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you.’” The.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

189. “Think of such civilizations, far back in time against the fading afterglow of creation, masters of a universe so young that life as yet had come only to a handful of worlds. Theirs would have been a loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and finding none to share their thoughts.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

190. “Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and Art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with Love. Men.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

191. “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

192. “There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood’s End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

193. “But it was in the art of the cartoon film, with its limitless possibilities, that New Athens had made its most successful experiments. The hundred years since the time of Disney had still left much undone in this most flexible of all mediums. On the purely realistic side, results could be produced indistinguishable from actual photography – much to the contempt of those who were developing the cartoon along abstract lines.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

194. “In Brohier’s eyes, violence was not merely the last refuge of the incompetent. It was the gloating revenge of the sore loser.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

195. “But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

196. “Don’t blame me for what happened on Earth,” he said. “I’ve never been there, and I never will –.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

197. “Isaac Asimov is, in reality, based on something I had invented a few years previously.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

198. “Corpse-food was on the way out even in your time,” Anderson explained. “Raising animals to – ugh – eat them became economically impossible. I don’t know how many acres of land it took to feed one cow, but at least ten humans could survive on the plants it produced. And probably a hundred, with hydroponic techniques.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

199. “You hide a Sun-powered device in darkness – only if you want to know when it is brought out into the light. In other words, the monolith may be some kind of alarm. And we have triggered it.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

200. “They will say that the Universe has no purpose and no plan, that since a hundred suns explode every year in our Galaxy, at this very moment some race is dying in the depths of space. Whether that race has done good or evil during its lifetime will make no difference in the end: there is no divine justice, for there is no God.”

— Arthur C. Clarke