![]() ![]() My life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it now? Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing thatīleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. Verified in The Sentinel – Masterworks of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Berkley Books, New York, 1983 edition, p. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire-alarm and Verified in The Collected Stories, Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, New York, 2001 edition, p. I do not think we will have to wait for long. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have broken the glass of the fire-alarm and I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars theĮmissaries are coming. Humanity will survive information deluge - Sir Arthur C Clarke, by Nalaka Gunawardene in OneWorld South Asia,įrom The Sentinel, 1948 (written in 1948, originally published as “Sentinel of Eternity” in 1951) But information is the first essential step to Knowledge is not wisdom and that wisdom is not foresight. But it is vital to remember that information - in the sense of raw data - is not knowledge that The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it Verified in Anchor Books, New York, 1997 edition, p. Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century, Michio Kaku, 1997 Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Martin’s Press, New York, 1999 edition, p. ![]() Verified in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!, Collected Essays 1934-1998, St. Per second than they could utter in a lifetime. Like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words Our technology must still be laughably primitive we may well be The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life - much less intelligence - beyond this Earthĭoes not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Verified in Temple Press Ltd., London, 1951 edition, p. Behind us is a past to which we can never return … TheĬoming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation … the childhood of our race was over and We stand now at the turning point between two eras. The best proof that there’s intelligent life in outer space is the fact that it hasn’t come here. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. 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. There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible. The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale. The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. I don’t believe in astrology I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society. It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him. It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen theĮarth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars. It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal. TheĬombination is unstable and self-destroying. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.Īny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.Īs our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. (2) It’s possible, but it’s not worth doing. In the struggle for freedom of information, technology, not politics, will be the ultimate decider.Įvery revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. Cited quotes have been checked by Institute staff against primary sources in the collection of the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC. Uncited quotes are provided by Neil McAleer, Arthur C. ![]() Clarke spanning a wide range of topics concerning the human condition, our existence on Earth, and Earth’s place in a greater cosmos. ![]() The quotes provided below reflect the insights of Arthur C. ![]()
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