Quotes from Arthur C. Clarke

A fin-de-siècle philosopher had once remarked—and been roundly denounced for his pains—that Walter Elias Disney had contributed more to genuine human happiness than all the religious teachers in history. Now, half a century after the artist's death, his dreams were still proliferating across the Florida landscape.

faktem byÅ'o, i? cierpiaÅ' na nieuleczalnÄ… chorobÄ™, która jak siÄ™ wydawaÅ'o, spoÅ›ród wszystkich inteligentnych ras zamieszkujÄ…cych wszechÅ›wiat atakowaÅ'a tylko gatunki homo sapiens. TÄ… chorobÄ… byÅ'a mania religijna.

He oído decir que hace unos cien años hubo un grupo de músicos que gozaban del favor popular, y que tenían un nombre muy extraño: los Beatles, que se deletrea B-E-A-T-L-E-S, no me pregunte por qué. Ellos escribieron una canción con un título igualmente extraño: «Lucy en el cielo con diamantes».

If you sat down, you were heavier than when you stood up.

Well, it was unreasonable to expect more. Already he had seen wonders for which many men would have sacrificed their lives. He thought of his dead companions; he had no cause for complaint.

But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.

holographic principle.

Le cattive notizie comportano in qualche modo la garanzia della propria verità. Sono le buone notizie che hanno bisogno di conferma

The human habitat continues to be dominated by individuals with characteristics decidedly different from the human contingent observed inside Rama II and at the Node.

magnetohydrodynamic

For the address, Nakamura had ordered his tailors to make him a new shogun's outfit, complete with ornamented sword and dagger. He was appearing in Japanese martial dress, he told his aides, to stress his role as the "lead warrior and protector" of the colonists.

It was a kind of basso-profundo flutter in which each individual vibration could be heard. And the modulation was itself modulated; it rose and fell, rose and fell, with a period of about five seconds.

L'audace—toujours l'audace!

There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

regrets he felt were less for his deceits than for his past indifference.

And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.

This was the pause when history held its breath, the hushed moment between the lightning flash and the advent of the first concussion. Soon the thunder would be rolling round the world; and soon there might be no world at all, while he and his people would be homeless exiles among the stars.

mystery was piling upon mystery, and that for all his efforts he was getting further and further from any understanding of the truths he sought.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials—these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether. Yet Floyd also wondered if this was altogether a bad thing; the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull. From

Norton tightened his arms around her. One of the nicest things about weightlessness, he often thought, was that you could really hold someone all night, without cutting off the circulation. There were those who claimed that love at one gee was so ponderous that they could no longer enjoy it.

but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as

The gear that they were carrying looked very formidable, but though it was bulky it weighed practically nothing. It was all packed in gravity-polarising containers which neutralised its weight, leaving only inertia to be contended with.

There was an almost total breakdown in the standard institutions of modern civilization, creating a phantasmagoric life for everyone in the world except the privileged few in their protected retreats.

C?ci, deÈ™i era st?pânul lumii, nu era foarte sigur ce trebuia s? fac? în continuare, Dar avea el s? se gândeasc? la ceva".