Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

As to the nature of that drive, one thing was now certain, even though all else was mystery. There were no jets of gas, no beams of ions or plasma thrusting Rama into its new orbit. No one put it better than Sergeant Professor Myron, when he said, in shocked

The outermost—Jupiter XXVII—moved backwards in an unstable path nineteen million miles from its temporary master. It was the prize in a perpetual tug-of-war between Jupiter and the Sun, for the planet was constantly capturing short-lived moons from the asteroid belt, and losing them again after a few million years. Only the inner satellites were its permanent property; the Sun could never wrest them from its grasp.

How obvious, now, was that mathematical ratio of its sides, the quadratic sequence 1:4:9! And how naive to have imagined that the series ended there, in only three dimensions!

Hello, Dave," said Hal presently. "Have you found the trouble?" This

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.

First rule of government of the people, by the people, for the people: Never tell the people!

But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme....

And even if it never makes it to the big screen, millions of people have watched a very impressive version of the opening in the box office hit Independence Day. So when/if Childhood's End is finally made into a movie, the popcorn set will undoubtedly think we've ripped off I.D.

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.

wonder if he can feel pain? Bowman thought briefly. Probably not, he told himself; there are no sense organs in the human cortex, after all. The human brain can be operated on without anesthetics. He

the next day the government of South Africa announced that full civil rights would be restored to the white minority.

That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him—or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it—but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.

We're particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10—the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.

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

The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.

Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?" "Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I'm afraid of them. Why do you ask?

A hundred years ago, the electric telegraph made possible - indeed, inevitable - the United States of America. The communications satellite will make equally inevitable a United Nations of Earth; let us hope that the transition period will not be equally bloody.

But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.

No one worried except a few philosophers. The race was too intent upon savoring its new-found freedom to look beyond the pleasures of the present. Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias—boredom. Perhaps

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

Ladies and gentlemen, those flames from the port engines are perfectly normal. The stewardess will be coming around in a moment to serve coffee, tea, or milk. I'm sorry we don't have anything stronger on this flight—regulations don't permit it.

He knew now that when power and ambition and curiosity were satisfied, there still were left the longings of the heart.

They both knew, of course, that Hal was hearing every word

Often we had no choice: we couldn't reform the whole world. And didn't somebody once say 'Politics is the art of the possible'?" "Quite true—which is why only second-rate minds go into it. Genius likes to challenge the impossible.