Top 450 Arthur C. Clarke Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 7 of 10

301. “Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on those planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation. But however far they travel from their native world, human beings can never escape the diurnal rhythm, set ages ago by its cycle of light and darkness.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

302. “There are some women who appear sincerely unaware of the fact that they cannot stop talking, and are most surprised when anyone accuses them of monopolising the conversation.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

303. “It goes on forever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world – that just beats me.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

304. “The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials – these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether. Yet Floyd also wondered if this was altogether.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

305. “He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

306. “If we both believe that we have nothing to learn from the other, is it not obvious that we will both be wrong?”

— Arthur C. Clarke

307. “It was one thing to have guessed it, another to have had that guess confirmed beyond possibility of refutation.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

308. “You can’t have action without reaction.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

309. “Curnow had once remarked that Dr. Chandra had the sort of physique that could only be achieved by centuries of starvation.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

310. “There was awe, and there was also incredulity – sheer disbelief that the dead Moon, of all worlds, could have sprung this fantastic surprise.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

311. “Floyd made it a rule never to worry about events over which he could have absolutely no control; any external threat would reveal itself in due time and must be dealt with then. But he could not help wondering if they had done.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

312. “But economical Mother Nature was always repeating herself, on such vastly different scales as the swirl of milk stirred into coffee, the cloud lanes of a cyclonic storm, the arms of a spiral nebula.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

313. “Long ago it had been decided that, however inconsequential rudeness to robots might appear to be, it should be discouraged. All too easily, it could spread to human relationships as well.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

314. “Beyond gravity, some of that freedom was regained; with the loss of weight went many of the cares and worries of Earth. Heywood.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

315. “Problems seldom go away if they’re ignored.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

316. “The exploration of the planets is now closer to us in time than the exploration of Africa by Stanley and Livingstone.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

317. “Because Nature always balances her books, the Sun lost some velocity in the transaction; but the effect would not be measurable for a few thousand years.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

318. “The end of strife and conflict of all kinds had also meant the virtual end of creative art. There were myriads of performers, amateur and professional, yet there had been no really outstanding new works of literature, music, painting, or sculpture for a generation. The world was still living on the glories of a past that could never return.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

319. “Children grow fast in this low gravity. But they don’t age so quickly – they’ll live longer than we do.” Floyd stared in fascination at the self-assured little lady, noting the graceful carriage and the unusually delicate bone structure.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

320. “All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

321. “The long-heralded global village is almost upon us, but it will last for only a flickering moment in the history of mankind. Before we even realise that it has come, it will be superseded – by the global family.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

322. “A major part of his job was deciding when warnings could be ignored, when they could be dealt with at leisure – and when they had to be treated as real emergencies. If he paid equal attention to all the ship’s cries for help, he would never get anything done. He.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

323. “There was nothing wrong, he reminded himself, with healthy fear; only when it escalated into panic did it become a killer.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

324. “Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-size rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

325. “What had been a perceived threat, a lien in a sense on future human behavior, was quickly reduced to a historical curiosity.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

326. “Yet there was also something slightly spooky about them. Norton could never understand how men with advanced scientific and technical training could possibly believe some of the things he had heard Cosmo Christers state as incontrovertible fact.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

327. “An author should never turn down the opportunity for a new experience.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

328. “The billion-year battle against the force of gravity was over.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

329. “Instantly, there had been cries of protest from the industrial archaeologists, outraged at such vandalism, and from the naturalists, who pointed out that the penguins simply loved the abandoned pipeline.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

330. “They would probably never even know that the human race existed. Such monumental indifference was worse than any deliberate insult. When.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

331. “The familiar can be as shocking as the strange – when it is in the wrong place.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

332. “There could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

333. “We’re particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10 – the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

334. “But at least we have answered one ancient question. We are not alone. The stars will never again be the same to us.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

335. “This was the fundamental problem with rockets – and no one had ever discovered any alternative for deep-space propulsion. It was just as difficult to lose speed as to acquire it, and carrying the necessary propellant for deceleration did not merely double the difficulty of a mission; it squared it.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

336. “Anything that had happened once on Earth should be expected millions of times elsewhere in the Universe; that was almost an article of faith among scientists.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

337. “Do we use models to help us find the truth? Or do we know the truth first, and then develop the mathematics to explain it?”

— Arthur C. Clarke

338. “After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy left for a civilization.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

339. “Can you sum up your ideas in less than – oh, a thousand bits?”

— Arthur C. Clarke

340. “Cassini – who discovered Japetus in 1671 – also observed that it was six times brighter on one side of its orbit than the other.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

341. “They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of absolute omnipotence;.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

342. “On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

343. “Futilitarianism.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

344. “Lucretius hit it on the nail when he said that religion was the by-product of fear – a reaction to a mysterious and often hostile universe.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

345. “My father always said that you cannot graft a culture of science and engineering onto an Iron Age society. And so it’s proving.’ Bisesa studied him. ‘You’ll have to tell me about your father.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

346. “There was little work left of a routine, mechanical nature. Men’s minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

347. “Historically, both fear and public opinion were notoriously unconcerned about morality.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

348. “I’d hate to do arithmetic, George thought to himself, in a system based on fourteen.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

349. “And there still remained, for all men to share, the linked worlds of Love and Art. Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and Art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with Love.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

350. “Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on those planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation.”

— Arthur C. Clarke