Zitate von Arthur C. Clarke

„Es muss wunderbar sein, siebzehn zu sein und alles zu wissen.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Einsteinian time dilation.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

2010: Odyssey Two

„Magie ist nur eine Wissenschaft, die wir noch nicht verstehen.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Clarkes zweites Gesetz: Die einzige Möglichkeit, die Grenzen des Möglichen zu entdecken, besteht darin, sich ein Stück weit an ihnen vorbei ins Unmögliche zu wagen.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Jede hinreichend fortgeschrittene Technologie ist von Magie nicht mehr zu unterscheiden.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

Clarkes Drittes Gesetz aus Profiles of the Future - zitiert von Andreas Weber in: Biokapital. Die Versöhnung von Ökonomie, Natur und Menschlichkeit, Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3827007925, Seite 57.
Original engl.: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Profiles of the future: an inquiry into the limits of the possible (revised edition 1973). Seite 36
Variante: Jede hinreichend fortschrittliche Technologie ist von Magie nicht zu unterscheiden

„Ich möchte so früh wie möglich einen dauerhaften und bedeutungsvollen Frieden in Sri Lanka erreichen. Mir ist jedoch bewusst, dass Frieden nicht nur gewünscht werden kann. Es beinhaltet harte Arbeit, Mut und Ausdauer.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Ich möchte, dass wir unsere Stammesunterschiede überwinden und anfangen, so zu denken und zu handeln, als wären wir eine Familie. Das wäre echte Globalisierung…“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Ich bin sicher, das Universum ist voll von intelligentem Leben. Es war einfach zu intelligent, um hierher zu kommen.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Clarkes Drittes Gesetz: Jede hinreichend fortgeschrittene Technologie ist von Magie nicht mehr zu unterscheiden.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„Kommunikationstechnologien sind notwendig, aber nicht ausreichend, damit wir Menschen miteinander auskommen können.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

IRC discussion at Scifi.com (1 November 1996) http://web.archive.org/web/20021201214228/http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/aclarke.txt with Clarke and Gentry Lee
1990s

„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.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

„In my time I’ve been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true!“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Kontext: In my time I’ve been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true! Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never expected to see so much happen in the span of a few decades. We "space cadets" of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel — but we didn’t imagine that it lay in our own near future… I still can't quite believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age! We’ve accomplished a great deal in that time, but the "Golden Age of Space" is only just beginning. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit — and then, to the Moon and beyond. Space travel — and space tourism — will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.

„Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

„Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)

„Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible

Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
Quelle: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible

„I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Kontext: Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.
I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…

„Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered.“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)
Kontext: Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered. When our race has reached its ultimate achievements, and the stars themselves are scattered no more widely than the seed of Adam, even then we shall still be like ants crawling on the face of the Earth. The ants have covered the world, but have they conquered it — for what do their countless colonies know of it, or of each other?
So it will be with us as we spread out from Earth, loosening the bonds of kinship and understanding, hearing faint and belated rumors at second — or third — or thousandth hand of an ever dwindling fraction of the entire human race. Though the Earth will try to keep in touch with her children, in the end all the efforts of her archivists and historians will be defeated by time and distance, and the sheer bulk of material. For the numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.
We have left the realm of comprehension in our vain effort to grasp the scale of the universe; so it must ever be, sooner rather than later.

„The danger of asteroid or comet impact is one of the best reasons for getting into space“

—  Arthur C. Clarke

"Meeting of the Minds : Buzz Aldrin Visits Arthur C. Clarke" by Andrew Chaikin (27 February 2001) http://web.archive.org/web/20010302082528/http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/aldrin_clarke_010227.html
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
Kontext: The danger of asteroid or comet impact is one of the best reasons for getting into space … I'm very fond of quoting my friend Larry Niven: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"