Quotes by Arthur Clarke

• We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 - and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20?
• Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading manuals without the software.
• Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
• The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
• The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
• The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.
• The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
• There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
• Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
• Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all along.
• When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
• This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.
• I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.
• Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here. Well, it can't hide forever - one day we will overhear it.
• Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
• How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.
• I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.
• I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
• If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
• It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
• It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
• It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.
• New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!
• Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.
• I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.
• The only way to discover the limits of the impossible is to go beyond them into the unknown
• The only way to discover the limits of possibility is to go beyond them into the impossible.
• The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into impossibly.
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
• The only way to achieve the impossible, is to become the impossible.