Top 450 Arthur C. Clarke Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “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

302. “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

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

305. “It was some kind of cosmic switching device, routing the traffic of the stars through unimaginable dimensions of space and time. He was passing through a Grand Central Station of the galaxy.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

306. “Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

307. “You cannot reason with a rifle bullet fired from across the battlefield. You cannot negotiate with an artillery shell lobbed from over the horizon. You cannot compromise with a nuclear warhead screaming in from half a world away. The only answer to the gun, the only defense for the gun, has been more guns.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

310. “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

311. “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

312. “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

313. “There was no evidence that the intelligence of the human race had improved, but for the first time everyone was given the fullest opportunity of using what brain he had.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

315. “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

316. “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

317. “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

318. “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

319. “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

320. “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

321. “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

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

324. “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

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

328. “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

329. “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

330. “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

331. “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

332. “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

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

335. “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

336. “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

337. “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

338. “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

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

— Arthur C. Clarke

340. “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

341. “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

342. “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

343. “I hope you’re right. Apart from that, won’t there be trouble when he discovers what you’re trying to do? Because he will, you know.” “I’ll take that risk. Besides, we understand each other rather well.” The physicist toyed with his pencil and stared into space for a while. “It’s a very pretty problem. I like it,” he said simply. Then he dived into a drawer and produced an enormous writing pad, quite the biggest that Stormgren had ever seen.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

344. “So the problem of Evil never really existed. To expect the universe to be benevolent was like imagining one could always win at a game of pure chance.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

345. “Suppose, in their altruistic passion for justice and order, they had determined to reform the world, but had not realized that they were destroying the soul of man?”

— Arthur C. Clarke

346. “He broke open the first of the meal packets, and inspected it without enthusiasm. The name on the label – SPACETASTIES – was enough to put him off. And he had grave doubts about the promise printed underneath: ‘Guaranteed crumbless’.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

347. “Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

348. “It is not easy to run a shipping line between destinations that not only change their positions by millions of kilometers every few days, but also swing through a velocity range of tens of kilometers a second. Anything like a regular schedule is out of the question; there are times when one must forget the whole idea and stay in port – or at least in orbit – waiting for the Solar System to rearrange itself for the greater convenience of Mankind.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

349. “It was good to be alive; it was better to be young; it was best of all to be in love.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

350. “Pat’s knowledge of terrestrial history was vague; like most residents of the Moon, he tended to assume that nothing of great importance had ever happened.”

— Arthur C. Clarke