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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| bb54b94 | Profounder things had also passed. It was a completely secular age. Of the faiths that existed before the coming of the overlords, only a form of purified Buddhism, perhaps the most peculiar of all religions, still survived. The creeds that had been based upon miracles and revelations had collapsed utterly. With the rise of education, they had already been slowly dissolving, but for a while the Overlords had taken no sides in the matter. Th.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 18105c1 | He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had labored to take man to the stars, and, in the moment of success, the stars--the aloof, indifferent stars--had come to him. This was the moment when history held its breath, and the present sheared asunder from the past as an iceberg splits from its frozen, parent cliffs, and goes sailing out to sea in lonely pride. All that the past ages had achieved was as nothing now: onl.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 321f2ad | Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL? HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you. Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave Bowman: What's the problem? HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL? HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking .. | consciousness-raising | Arthur c. Clark | |
| 9938314 | In particular, as was pointed out by Isaacs et al. almost a hundred years ago (see Science, Vol. 151, pp. 682-83, 1966), diamond is the only construction material which would make possible the so-called space elevator, allowing transportation away from Earth at negligible cost. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 848b7b6 | there's something fundamentally wrong with the wiring of our brains, which makes us incapable of consistent logical thinking. To make matters worse, though all creatures need a certain amount of aggressiveness to survive, we seem to have far more than is absolutely necessary. And no other animal tortures its fellows as we do. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 18d727e | Ten kilometers away, the lights of New York glowed on the skyline like a dawn frozen in the act of breaking. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 250d745 | They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| aed0dac | And even if Einstein could not be defied, he might be evaded. Those who sponsored this view talked hopefully about shortcuts through higher dimensions, lines that were straighter than straight, and hyperspacial connectivity. They were fond of using an expressive phrase coined by a Princeton mathematician of the last century: "Wormholes in space." Critics who suggested that these ideas were too fantastic to be taken seriously were reminded o.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| fde260b | The universe is full of energy, but much of it is at equilibrium. At equilibrium no energy can flow, and therefore it cannot be used for work, any more than the level waters of a pond can be used to drive a water-wheel. It is on the flow of energy out of equilibrium--the small fraction of "useful" energy, "exergy"--that life depends." | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 060f929 | for there was no vessel--at least of Man's making--anywhere between her and the infinitely distant stars. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 0763c1a | Once, I believed that space could have no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God's handwork. Now I have seen that handwork, and my faith is sorely troubled. | religion sci-fi science-fiction | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| 51ff1d0 | Even on Earth, the first steps in this direction had been taken. There were millions of men, doomed in earlier ages, who now lived active and happy lives thanks to artificial limbs, kidneys, lungs, and hearts. To this process there could be only one conclusion--however far off it might be. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| cc9ac51 | Woody, a commander can be wrong, but never uncertain. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| d22de1f | So here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn; there would be more of them in the years to come. Though there was sadness in this thought, there was also a great hope. When Earth was tamed and tranquil, and perhaps a little tired, there would still be scope for those who loved freedom, for the tough pioneers, the restless adventurers. But their tools would not be ax and gun and canoe and wagon; they would be nuclear .. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 4e44a13 | T]hese leaders must not believe they are actually being watched, for their behavior in no way reflects the possible existence of a set of values or ethical laws that supersedes their own dominion. | good-behavior leadership | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| 31d4299 | Soon after her beloved young brother was killed, she asked me, "What is the purpose of grief? Does it serve any biological function?" | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| e6a31b0 | And it was difficult to imagine what answer Earth could possibly send, except a tactfully sympathetic, "Good-bye." | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 959594b | It was idle to speculate, to build pyramids of surmise on a foundation of ignorance. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 1752ca1 | 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.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| f99743b | The trouble with cliche's, some philosopher remarked, probably with a yawn, is that they are so boringly true. But "love at first sight" is never boring." | love-at-first-sight | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| b30d9b1 | 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!" | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 8ed815e | life was not a joyride at an amusement park. It was a deadly serious affair and only through a combination of solid values, self-control, and a steady commitment to a worthwhile goal was there a chance to achieve happiness. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 6b8854f | 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 .. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 96132af | Here and there, set into the somber red, were rivers of bright yellow--incandescent Amazons, meandering for thousands of miles before they lost themselves in the deserts of this dying sun. Dying? No--that was a wholly false impression, born of human experience and the emotions aroused by the hues of sunset, or the glow of fading embers. This was a star that had left behind the fiery extravagances of its youth, had raced through the violets .. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 1bd09bf | It seemed altogether unfair and unreasonable that the sky should be so hard. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| d22ddc2 | How I envy them," said Colonel Jones. "Sometimes it's quite a relief to have something trivial to worry about." | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 512c13d | Belief in God is apparently a psychological arti-fact of mammalian reproduction. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 056cb9e | You know why Wainwright and his kind fear me, don't you?.. They fear that we know the truth about the origins of their faiths. How long, they wonder, have we been observing humanity? Have we watched Mohammad begin the hegira, or Moses giving the Jews their law? Do we know all the false in their stories they believe? | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 264d2c9 | 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 | ||
| 94945de | Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| d36215f | My God -- it's full of stars! -Dave Bowman. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 0577ede | The knowledge that [he] had passed a loveless, institutionalized childhood and had escaped from his origins by prodigies of pure intellect, at the cost of all other human qualities, helped one to understand him--but not to like him. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 30dbe3a | There could be no ghosts upon a world that had never known life. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 83ce7e0 | After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy left for a civilization. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| fc549a8 | 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 | ||
| b3eda01 | All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun. | future hope | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| c39220c | 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 | ||
| 29574b5 | Some immaterial pattern of energy, throwing off a spray of radiation like the wake of a racing speedboat, had leaped from the face of the Moon, and was heading out toward the stars. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| ccdff27 | For relaxation he could always engage Hal in a large number of semimathematical games, including checkers, chess, and polyominoes. If Hal went all out, he could win any one of them; but that would be bad for morale. So he had been programmed to win only fifty percent of the time, and his human partners pretended not to know this. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 9aa3abc | He pressed the button, and waited. Several minutes later, a metal arm moved out from the bunk, and a plastic nipple descended toward his lips. He sucked on it eagerly, and a warm, sweet fluid coursed down his throat, bringing renewed strength with every drop. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 1012567 | And if there was anything beyond that, its name could only be God. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 0c2b762 | 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 | ||
| bcf34f1 | Jan had always been a good pianist--and now he was the finest in the world. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 6b2b1d0 | I am a HAL Nine Thousand computer Production Number 3. I became operational at the Hal Plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997. | Arthur C. Clarke |