Quotes About Discovery

he filled to perfection the classic recipe for a small boy: "a noise surrounded by dirt.

And then there came a sound which Moon-Watcher could not possibly have identified, for it had never been heard before in the history of the world. It was the clank of metal upon stone.

He had no wish to face whatever lurked in the unknown darkness, just beyond the little circle of light cast by the lamp of Science.

Cassini—who discovered Japetus in 1671—also observed that it was six times brighter on one side of its orbit than the other.

It's not any kind of rock—it crumbles when I touch it—I feel as if I'm exploring a giant Gruyère cheese…

Magic is just science we haven't figured out yet

Nevertheless, when you did not know what you were looking for, it was important to avoid all prejudices and preconceptions; something that at first sight seemed irrelevant, or even nonsensical, might turn out to be a vital clue.

Arthur C. Clarke

Trvalo nÄ›kolik tisíc let, než lidstvo pÃ…â"¢iÅ¡lo na to, že existuje nÄ›kolik zamÄ›stnání, která by nemÄ›li zastávat lidé, kteÃ…â"¢í se o nÄ› dobrovolnÄ› hlásí, a obzváÅ¡tÄ› tehdy, když projevují pÃ…â"¢íÅ¡iÅ¡né nadÅ¡ení.

Jede hinreichend fortschrittliche Technologie ist von Magie nicht zu unterscheiden

Shuttling back and forth in the equatorial plane where the brilliant stars of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - worlds that elsewhere would have counted as planets in their own right, but which here were merely satellites of a giant master.

He had lost his race. And he knew that he had lost it, not by the few weeks or months that he had feared, but by millennia. The huge and silent shadows driving across the stars, more miles above his head than he dared to guess, were as far beyond his little Columbus as it surpassed the log canoes of paleolithic man. [...] All that the past ages had achieved was as nothing now: only one thought echoed and re-echoed through Reinhold's brain: The human race was no longer alone.

When you all have figgered out how to sail across space to our shores, you'll find yourselves just as welcome as the people who come to your shores.

Magic is just science we don't understand yet

It still seemed incredible that one man could have done so much with such primitive equipment. But Cook had been not only a supreme navigator, but also a scientist and—in an age of brutal discipline—a humanitarian. He treated his own men with kindness, which was unusual; what was quite unheard of was that he behaved in exactly the same way to the often hostile savages in the new lands he discovered.

And history could never take from him the privilege of being the first of all mankind to gaze upon the works of an alien civilization.

Arthur C. Clarke

Any fool could shuffle genes and most did.

I'm only an ex-astronomer;

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them.

I've murdered something beautiful, Jimmy told himself. But then Rama had killed him.

My God -- it's full of stars!

He was, Sadler thought glumly, rather in the position of a man in a darkened coal cellar, looking for a black cat that might not be there. What was worse, to make the analogy more accurate he would have to be a man who didn't know what a cat looked like, even when he saw one.

If the decades and the centuries pass with no indication that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the long-term effects on human philosophy will be profound, and may be disastrous. Better to have neighbors we don't like than to be utterly alone. —Arthur C. Clarke