Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messiahs had lost their divinity. Beneath the fierce and passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning dew.

Good morning, Colonel Tooke. This is Athena. I am ready for my first lesson.

It was difficult not to think of the Central Computer as a living entity, localised in a single spot, though actually it was the sum total of all the machines in Diaspar.

With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family. Like

I'm lighting a cigarette—I've always wanted to smoke in a space suit.

That is why Jean could tap the knowledge of her unborn son.

All right," Otto Heilmann said a few minutes later, "we must now choose our leaders.

He was prepared, he thought, for any wonder. The only thing he had never expected was the utterly commonplace. The

Soon after publication 'Superiority' was inserted into the Engineering curriculum of MIT—to warn the graduates that the Better is often the enemy of the Good—and the Best can be the enemy of both, as it is always too late.

One's first existence was a precious gift which would never be repeated.

magnetostriction

Pure coincidence, of course, but a sensible man makes coincidences work for him.

Pelos padrões das eras passadas, era a Utopia. A ignorância, a doença, a pobreza e o medo haviam praticamente deixado de existir. A lembrança da guerra se desvanecia no passado, como um pesadelo que se dissolve com a alvorada. Em breve, ela estaria fora da experiência de qualquer pessoa viva.

Any fool could shuffle genes and most did.

throughout the flight, but there

Their little universe is very young, and its god is still a child. But it is too soon to judge them; when We return in the Last Days, We will consider what should be saved.

The newborn Athena, suddenly knowing far more about the future than the humans who had created her, had immediately been faced with a dilemma.

This is as bad as the Pandora party! It's nothing less than interstellar xenophobia!

Orice tehnologie suficient de avansat? nu poate fi deosebit? de magie.

The manuals that Otto gave me said that you couldn't hurt those things if you dropped them from the top of the Trump Tower. Besides," he added, "they aren't even armed yet. Right, Herr Admiral?

You," said Stormgren, "have been reading too much science-fiction.

I'm only an ex-astronomer;

it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!

I have always had the greatest enthusiasm for the mission.