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54100c8
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Don't believe anything I've told you--merely because I said it.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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1d050e0
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The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.
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mind
projection
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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2c511a1
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They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.
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theology
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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30ba699
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Some women, Commander Norton had decided long ago, should not be allowed aboard ship; weightlessness did things to their breasts that were too damn distracting. It was bad enough when they were motionless; but when they started to move, and sympathetic vibrations set in, it was more than any warm-blooded male should be asked to take. Some women, Commander Norton had decided long ago, should not be allowed aboard ship; weightlessness did thi..
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rendezvous-with-rama
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f407bff
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Turing had pointed out that, if one could carry out a prolonged conversation with a machine--whether by typewriter or microphones was immaterial--without being able to distinguish between its replies and those that a man might give, then the machine was thinking, by any sensible definition of the word. Hal could pass the Turing test with ease. The
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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72816f2
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There were other thinkers, Bowman also found, who held even more exotic views. They did not believe that really advanced beings would possess organic bodies at all. Sooner or later, as their scientific knowledge progressed, they would get rid of the fragile, disease-and-accident-prone homes that Nature had given them, and which doomed them to inevitable death. They would replace their natural bodies as they wore out--or perhaps even before ..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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252ff11
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But at least we have answered one ancient question. We are not alone. The stars will never again be the same to us.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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88c3bb3
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The rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, nor the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions each of which c..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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264efcf
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He felt like a young student again, confronted with all the art and knowledge of mankind. The experience was both exhilarating and depressing; a whole universe lay at his fingertips, but the fraction of it he could explore in an entire lifetime was so negligible that he was sometimes overwhelmed with despair.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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d94e35d
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Everybody on this island has one ambition, which may be summed up very simply. It is to do something, however small it may be, better than anyone else. Of course, it's an ideal we don't all achieve. But in this modern world the great thing is to have an ideal. Achieving it is considerably less important.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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1f36a5c
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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.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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8f6a5ac
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no one of intelligence resents the inevitable.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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aab9360
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And in its sky was such a sun as no opium eater could ever have imagined in his wildest dreams. Too hot to be white, it was a searing ghost at the frontiers of the ultraviolet, burning its planets with radiations which would be instantly lethal to all earthly forms of life. For millions of kilometers around extended great veils of gas and dust, fluorescing in countless colors as the blasts of ultraviolet tore through them. It was a star aga..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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42b4674
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any man, in the right circumstances, could be dehumanized by panic.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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6948622
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A man who grows that much hair,' critics were fond of saying, 'must have a lot to hide.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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0f9cdda
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The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-first century there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice.
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meteors
population-density
space
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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9cc4be8
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For Jan was still suffering from the romantic illusion-the cause of so much misery and so much poetry-that every man has only one real love in his life.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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5261b29
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Almost any seat was comfortable at one-sixth of a gravity.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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5fb7516
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As Solomon himself had remarked, 'We can be sure of talent, we can only pray for genius.' But it was a reasonable hope that in such concentrated society some interesting reactions would take place. Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests. So far, the conflict had produced worthwhile results in sculpture, music, literary criticism and film making. It was still too earl..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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dab0c51
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And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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423dc65
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Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f9f9930
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Men had sought beauty in many forms--in sequences of sound, in lines upon paper, in surfaces of stone, in the movements of the human body, in colours ranged through space.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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b7411e7
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But it had been widely argued that advanced intelligence could never arise in the sea; there were not enough challenges in so benign and unvarying an environment.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f839ce1
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In these latter days, knighthood was an honor few Englishmen escaped.
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englishmen
knighthood
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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6eccf8a
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Personally, I refuse to drive a car - I won't have anything to do with any kind of transportation in which I can't read.
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reading
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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1f32adb
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But most of the time, with a contented resignation that comes normally to a man only at the end of a long and busy life, he sat before the keyboard and filled the air with his beloved Bach.
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bach
last-man-on-earth
piano
sad
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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15084e0
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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
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conciousness
science-fiction
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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2d2a6f3
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One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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e1ec15e
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Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automaticall..
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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a0168c0
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I agree with you, Captain," he whispered. "The human race has to live with its conscience. Whatever the Hermians argue, survival is not everything."
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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518bcaa
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Faith in one's own destiny was among the most valuable of the gifts which the gods could bestow upon a man,
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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65ffe31
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However much the universe and its mysteries might call him, this was where he was born and where he belonged. It would never satisfy him, yet always he would return. He had gone half-way across the Galaxy to learn this simple truth.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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0bee396
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Though the man-apes often fought and wrestled one another, their disputes very seldom resulted in serious injuries. Having no claws or fighting canine teeth, and being well protected by hair, they could not inflict much harm on one another. In any event, they had little surplus energy for such unproductive behavior; snarling and threatening was a much more efficient way of asserting their points of view.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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11e1901
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He did not wander aimlessly, though he never knew which village would be his next port of call. He was seeking no particular place, but a mood, an influence--indeed, a way of life.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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3c2e9ac
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Work is the best remedy for any shock,
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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74f7f42
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He left the unspoken question hanging in the air. How did one annoy a two- kilometre-long black rectangular slab? And just what form would its disapproval take
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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d18d87e
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Even the few serious crimes that did occur received no particular attention in the news. For well-bred people do not, after all, care to read about the social gaffes of others.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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7e039cb
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Moses Kaldor had always loved mountains; they made him feel nearer to the God whose nonexistence he still sometimes resented.
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nature
religion
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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4a2d3db
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Some women, Commander Norton had decided long ago, should not be allowed aboard ship; weightlessness did things to their breasts that were too damn distracting.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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e84ae62
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Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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31fc88a
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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." --
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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f68ac33
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He was alone in an airless, partially disabled ship, all communication with Earth cut off. There was not another human being within half a billion miles. And yet, in one very real sense, he was not alone. Before he could be safe, he must be lonelier still.
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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e28f9f3
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An author should never turn down the opportunity for a new experience
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Arthur C. Clarke |
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c16fb03
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Science fiction could now be made far more convincing by science fact.
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Arthur C. Clarke |