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Don't Mess Up The Environment Until You're Quite Sure What You're Doing.
-Arthur C. Clarke
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Don't Mess Up The

Arthur C. Clarke
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Don't Mess Up The Environment Until You're Quite Sure What You're Doing.

Understanding the Quote: "don't mess up the environment until you're quite sure what you're doing...."

This quote by Arthur C. Clarke reflects deeply on the theme of environment. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Environment, Mess, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Arthur C. Clarke interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke is celebrated for insightful thoughts on environment and mess. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Environment
Mess
More From Arthur C. Clarke
Others, One Suspects, Are Afraid That The Crossing Of Space , And Above All Contact With Intelligent But Nonhuman Races, May Destroy The Foundations Of Their Religious Faith . They May Be Right, But In Any Event Their Attitude Is One Which Does Not Bear Logical Examination For A Faith Which Cannot Survive Collision With The Truth Is Not Worth Many Regrets.
Religious
Attitude
Regret
Any Smoothly Functioning Technology Will Have The Appearance Of Magic.
Technology
Magic
Theatre
The Choice, As Wells Once Said, Is The Universe-or Nothing. . . . The Challenge Of The Great Spaces Between The Worlds Is A Stupendous One; But If We Fail To Meet It, The Story Of Our Race Will Be Drawing To Its Close. Humanity Will Have Turned Its Back Upon The Still Untrodden Heights And Will Be Descending Again The Long Slope That Stretches, Across A Thousand Million Years Of Time, Down To The Shores Of The Primeval Sea.
Future
Space
Race
Now Times Had Changed, And The Inherited Wisdom Of The Past Had Become Folly.
Past
Changed
Folly
I'm Sometimes Asked How I Would Like To Be Remembered. I've Had A Diverse Career As A Writer, Underwater Explorer, Space Promoter And Science Populariser. Of All These, I Want To Be Remembered Most As A Writer - One Who Entertained Readers, And, Hopefully, Stretched Their Imagination As Well.
Careers
Space
Imagination
The More Wonderful The Means Of Communication, The More Trivial, Tawdry, Or Depressing Its Contents Seemed To Be.
Depressing
Communication
Mean
No Communication Technology Has Ever Disappeared, But Instead Becomes Increasingly Less Important As The Technological Horizon Widens.
Communication
Technology
Important
In My Life I Have Found Two Things Of Priceless Worth - Learning And Loving. Nothing Else - Not Fame, Not Power, Not Achievement For Its Own Sake - Can Possible Have The Same Lasting Value. For When Your Life Is Over, If You Can Say 'i Have Learned' And 'i Have Loved,' You Will Also Be Able To Say 'i Have Been Happy.
Loving Life
Two
Achievement
But Please Remember: This Is Only A Work Of Fiction. The Truth, As Always, Will Be Far Stranger.
Fiction
Remember
Stranger
Humor Was The Enemy Of Desire.
Enemy
Desire
And Because, In All The Galaxy, They Had Found Nothing More Precious Than Mind, They Encouraged Its Dawning Everywhere. They Became Farmers In The Fields Of Stars; They Sowed, And Sometimes They Reaped. And Sometimes, Dispassionately, They Had To Weed.
Weed
Stars
Mind
Politicians Should Read Science Fiction, Not Westerns And Detective Stories.
Science
Political
Fiction
It Was One Thing To Have Guessed It, Another To Have Had That Guess Confirmed Beyond Possibility Of Refutation.
Statistics
Possibility
Refutation
Reading Computer Manuals Without The Hardware Is As Frustrating As Reading Sex Manuals Without The Software.
Sex
Reading
Computer
I Sometimes Wonder How We Spent Leisure Time Before Satellite Television And Internet Came Along…and Then I Realise That I Have Spent More Than Half Of My Life In The ‘dark Ages’!
Life
Time
Dark
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?
Stars
Race
Space
One Of The Biggest Roles Of Science Fiction Is To Prepare People To Accept The Future Without Pain And To Encourage A Flexibility Of The Mind. Politicians Should Read Science Fiction, Not Westerns And Detective Stories.
Pain
Future
Science
The Phenomenon Of Ufo Doesn't Say Anything About The Presence Of Intelligence In Space. It Just Shows How Rare It Is Here On The Earth.
Space
Say Anything
Earth
We Always Thought The Living Earth Was A Thing Of Beauty. It Isn’t. Life Has Had To Learn To Defend Itself Against The Planet’s Random Geological Savagery.
Earth
Planets
Savagery
The One Fact About The Future Of Which We Can Be Certain Is That It Will Be Utterly Fantastic.
Facts
Fantastic
Certain
Only Small Minds Are Impressed By Large Numbers.
Science
Technology
Numbers
I Am Unable To Distinguish Clearly Between Your Religious Ceremonies And Apparently Identical Behavior At The Sporting And Cultural Functions You Have Transmitted To Me.
Religious
Behavior
Function
Can The Synthesis Of Man And Machine Ever Be Stable, Or Will The Purely Organic Component Become Such A Hindrance That It Has To Be Discarded?
Men
Machines
Synthesis
You Will Find Men Like Him In All Of The World's Religions. They Know That We Represent Reason And Science, And, However Confident They May Be In Their Beliefs, They Fear That We Will Overthrow Their Gods. Not Necessarily Through Any Deliberate Act, But In A Subtler Fashion. Science Can Destroy A Religion By Ignoring It As Well As By Disproving Its Tenets. No One Ever Demonstrated, So Far As I Am Aware, The Nonexistance Of Zeus Or Thor, But They Have Few Followers Now.
Fashion
Men
Religion
I Will Not Be Afraid Because I Understand ... And Understanding Is Happiness.
Understanding
Getting Information From The Internet Is Like Getting A Glass Of Water From The Niagara Falls.
Fall
Glasses
Water
Judge Me By My Deeds, Though They Are Few, Rather Than My Words, Though They Are Many.
Judging
Deeds
Judge Me
. . . The Newspapers Of Utopia, He Had Long Ago Decided, Would Be Terribly Dull.
Long Ago
Would Be
Dull
In The Long Run, There Are No Secrets. In Science. The Universe Will Not Cooperate In A Cover-up.
Running
Long
Secret
I Have Never Grown Up, But I Will Never Stop Growing.
Growing
Isaac Asimov Is, In Reality, Based On Something I Had Invented A Few Years Previously.
Reality
Years
Isaac
God Said, 'cancel Program Genesis.' The Universe Ceased To Exist.
Program
Said
Genesis
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.
Men
Race
Numbers
Open The Pod Bay Doors, Hal.
Movie
Doors
Great Year
Those Wanderers Must Have Looked On Earth, Circling Safely In The Narrow Zone Between Fire And Ice, And Must Have Guessed That It Was The Favourite Of The Sun's Children.
Children
Fire
Ice
As His Body Became More And More Defenseless, So His Means Of Offense Became Steadily More Frightful.
Mean
Body
Offense
We Stand Now At The Turning Point Between Two Eras. Behind Us Is A Past To Which We Can Never Return...
Past
Two
Eras
Somewhere In Me Is A Curiosity Sensor. I Want To Know What's Over The Next Hill. You Know, People Can Live Longer Without Food Than Without Information. Without Information, You'd Go Crazy.
Crazy
People
Curiosity
Before You Become Too Entranced With Gorgeous Gadgets And Mesmerizing Video Displays, Let Me Remind You That Information Is Not Knowledge, Knowledge Is Not Wisdom, And Wisdom Is Not Foresight. Each Grows Out Of The Other, And We Need Them All.
Learning
Technology
Perception
It May Be That The Old Astrologers Had The Truth Exactly Reversed, When They Believed That The Stars Controlled The Destinies Of Men. The Time May Come When Men Control The Destinies Of Stars.
Stars
Truth
Science
Why, Robert Singh Often Wondered, Did We Give Our Hearts To Friends Whose Life Spans Are So Much Shorter Than Our Own?
Heart
Giving
Singh
Isn't Killing People In The Name Of God A Pretty Good Definition Of Insanity?
Atheist
Names
People
Space Can Be Mapped And Crossed And Occupied Without Definable Limit; But It Can Never Be Conquered.
Space
Limits
Guns Are The Crutches Of The Impotent.
Gun
Crutches
Once You Can Reproduce A Phenomenon, You Are Well On The Way To Understanding It.
Understanding
Statistics
Way
I Can Never Look Now At The Milky Way Without Wondering From Which Of Those Banked Clouds Of Stars The Emissaries Are Coming. If You Will Pardon So Commonplace A Simile, We Have Set Off The Fire Alarm And Have Nothing To Do But To Wait. I Do Not Think We Will Have To Wait For Long.
Stars
Thinking
Fire
If Man Can Live In Manhattan, He Can Live Anywhere.
Travel
Home
Men
I'm Sure We Would Not Have Had Men On The Moon If It Had Not Been For Wells And Verne And The People Who Write About This And Made People Think About It. I'm Rather Proud Of The Fact That I Know Several Astronauts Who Became Astronauts Through Reading My Books.
Book
Reading
Writing
They Will Have Time Enough, In Those Endless Aeons, To Attempt All Things, And To Gather All Knowledge... No Gods Imagined By Our Minds Have Ever Possessed The Powers They Will Command... But For All That, They May Envy Us, Basking In The Bright Afterglow Of Creation; For We Knew The Universe When It Was Young.
Envy
Mind
May
Finally, I Would Like To Assure My Many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, And Muslim Friends That I Am Sincerely Happy That The Religion Which Chance Has Given You Has Contributed To Your Peace Of Mind (and Often, As Western Medical Science Now Reluctantly Admits, To Your Physical Well-being). Perhaps It Is Better To Be Un-sane And Happy, Than Sane And Un-happy. But It Is The Best Of All To Be Sane And Happy. Whether Our Descendants Can Achieve That Goal Will Be The Greatest Challenge Of The Future. Indeed, It May Well Decide Whether We Have Any Future.
Christian
Buddhist
Goal
Don't Mess Up The Environment Until You're Quite Sure What You're Doing.
Environment
Mess
Belief In God Is Apparently A Psychological Artifact Of Mammalian Reproduction.
Belief
Psychological
Artifacts
One Of The Great Tragedies Of Mankind Is That Morality Has Been Hijacked By Religion. So Now People Assume That Religion And Morality Have A Necessary Connection. But The Basis Of Morality Is Really Very Simple And Doesn't Require Religion At All.
Simple
People
Tragedy
We Stand Now At The Turning Point Between Two Eras. Behind Us Is A Past To Which We Can Never Return... The Coming Of The Rocket Brought To An End A Million Years Of Isolation... The Childhood Of Our Race Was Over And History As We Know It Began.
Past
Race
Years
The Only Real Problem In Life Is What To Do Next.
Life
Real
Next
The Object Of Teaching A Child Is To Enable The Child To Get Along Without The Teacher. We Need To Educate Our Children For Their Future, Not Our Past.
Teacher
Children
Teaching
The Person One Loves Never Really Exists, But Is A Projection Focused Through The Lens Of The Mind Onto Whatever Screen It Fits With Least Distortion.
Mind
Lenses
Fit
Sometimes A Decision Has To Be Made By A Single Individual, Who Has The Authority To Enforce It. That's Why You Need A Captain. You Can't Run A Ship By A Committee-at Least Not All The Time.
Running
Decision
Needs
Only Feeble Minds Are Paralyzed By Facts.
Mind
Facts
Feeble Minds
When Beauty Is Universal, It Loses Its Power To Move The Heart, And Only Its Absence Can Produce Any Emotional Effect.
Beauty
Moving
Heart
I Also Believe - And Hope - That Politics And Economics Will Cease To Be As Important In The Future As They Have Been In The Past; The Time Will Come When Most Of Our Present Controversies On These Matters Will Seem As Trivial, Or As Meaningless, As The Theological Debates In Which The Keenest Minds Of The Middle Ages Dissipated Their Energies. Politics And Economics Are Concerned With Power And Wealth, Neither Of Which Should Be The Primary, Still Less The Exclusive, Concern Of Full-grown Men.
Believe
Past
Men
Now, Before You Make A Movie, You Have To Have A Script, And Before You Have A Script, You Have To Have A Story; Though Some Avant-garde Directors Have Tried To Dispense With The Latter Item, You'll Find Their Work Only At Art Theaters.
Art
Directors
Avant Garde
Death Focuses The Mind On The Things That Really Matter: Why Are We Here, And What Should We Do?
Mind
Matter
Should
I've Been Saying For A Long Time That I'm Hoping To Find Intelligent Life In Washington.
Intelligent
Long
Long Time
A Man Who Grows That Much Hair,' Critics Were Fond Of Saying, 'must Have A Lot To Hide.
Men
Hair
Critics
Space Is What Stops Everything From Happening In The Same Place.
Space
Happenings
The Greatest Tragedy In Mankind's Entire History May Be The Hijacking Of Morality By Religion.
Atheist
Religion
Tragedy
A Faith That Cannot Survive Collision With The Truth Is Not Worth Many Regrets.
Faith
Truth
Regret
Attempting To Define Science Fiction Is An Undertaking Almost As Difficult, Though Not So Popular, As Trying To Define Pornography... In Both Pornography And Sf, The Problem Lies In Knowing Exactly Where To Draw The Line.
Lying
Knowing
Trying
Now I'm A Scientific Expert; That Means I Know Nothing About Absolutely Everything.
Mean
Experts
Knows
The Limits Of The Possible Can Only Be Defined By Going Beyond Them Into The Impossible.
Inspirational
Motivational
Positive
It Was A Pity That There Was No Radar To Guide One Across The Trackless Seas Of Life. Every Man Had To Find His Own Way, Steered By Some Secret Compass Of The Soul. And Sometimes, Late Or Early, The Compass Lost Its Power And Spun Aimlessly On Its Bearings. Alan Bishop
Men
Sea
Soul
Across The Gulf Of Centuries, The Blind Smile Of Homer Is Turned Upon Our Age. Along The Echoing Corridors Of Time, The Roar Of The Rockets Merges Now With The Creak Of The Wind-taut Rigging. For Somewhere In The World Today, Still Unconscious Of His Destiny, Walks The Boy Who Will Be The First Odysseus Of The Age Of Space.
Future
Destiny
Boys
The Goal Of The Future Is Full Unemployment, So We Can Play. That's Why We Have To Destroy The Present Politico-economic System.
Play
Goal
Unemployment
My Objection To Organized Religion Is The Premature Conclusion To Ultimate Truth That It Represents.
Conclusion
Organized
Ultimate Truth
I Don't Believe In Astrology; I'm A Sagittarius And We're Skeptical.
Inspirational
Funny
Believe
I Have Great Faith In Optimism As A Guiding Principle, If Only Because It Offers Us The Opportunity Of Creating A Self-fulfilling Prophecy.
Opportunity
Guiding Principles
Self
That's One Of Those Meaningless And Unanswerable Questions The Mind Keeps Returning To Endlessly, Like The Tongue Exploring A Broken Tooth.
Broken
Mind
Teeth
Any Technology Distinguishable From Magic Is Insufficiently Advanced.
Technology
Magic
Advanced Technology
The Moment When One First Meets A Great Work Of Art Has An Impact That Can Never Again Be Recaptured.
Art
Impact
Firsts
Never Attribute To Malevolence What Is Merely Due To Incompetence
Incompetence
Attributes
Malevolence
In This Universe The Night Was Falling; The Shadows Were Lengthening Towards An East That Would Not Know Another Dawn. But Elsewhere The Stars Were Still Young And The Light Of Morning Lingered; And Along The Path He Once Had Followed, Man Would One Day Go Again.
Morning
Stars
Fall
Few Artists Thrive In Solitude And Nothing Is More Stimulating Than The Conflict Of Minds With Similar Interests.
Artist
Solitude
Mind
Then He [the Star Child] Waited, Marshaling His Thoughts And Brooding Over His Still Untested Powers. For Though He Was Master Of The World, He Was Not Quite Sure What To Do Next. But He Would Think Of Something.
Stars
Children
Thinking
The Entire Sweep Of Human History From The Dark Ages Into The Unknown Future Was Considerably Less Important At The Moment Than The Question Of A Certain Girl And Her Feelings Toward Him.
Girl
Dark
Feelings
As Three Laws Were Good Enough For Newton, I Have Modestly Decided To Stop There.
Science
Law
Three
Religion Is A By-product Of Fear. For Much Of Human History It May Have Been A Necessary Evil, But Why Was It More Evil Than Necessary? Isn’t Killing People In The Name Of God A Pretty Good Definition Of Insanity?
Atheist
Names
People
Good Morning, Doctors. I Have Taken The Liberty Of Removing Windows 95 From My Hard Drive.
Morning
Taken
Technology
I'm Quite Fond Of The Writer Who Told A Beginning Author, "if You've Got A Message, Use Western Union."
Western
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.
Stars
Patriotic
Men
A Hundred Years Ago, The Electric Telegraph Made Possible-indeed, Inevitable-the United States Of America. The Communications Satellite Will Make Equally Inevitable A United Nations Of Earth; Let Us Hope That The Transition Period Will Not Be Equally Bloody.
Communication
Years
America
I Suspect That Religion Is A Necessary Evil In The Childhood Of Our Particular Species. And That's One Of The Interesting Things About Contact With Other Intelligences: We Could See What Role, If Any, Religion Plays In Their Development. I Think That Religion May Be Some Random By-product Of Mammalian Reproduction. If That's True, Would Non-mammalian Aliens Have A Religion?
Thinking
Play
Evil
There Is The Possibility That Humankind Can Outgrow Its Infantile Tendencies, As I Suggested In 'childhood's End.' But It Is Amazing How Childishly Gullible Humans Are.
Childhood
Gullible
Possibility
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?
Inspirational
Educational
Men
Trying To Predict The Future Is A Discouraging And Hazardous Occupation. If By Some Miracle A Prophet Could Describe The Future Exactly As It Was Going To Take Place, His Predictions Would Sound So Absurd That People Everyone Would Laugh Him To Scorn. The Only Thing We Can Be Sure Of About The Future Is That It Will Be Absolutely Fantastic. So, If What I Say Now Seems To You To Be Very Reasonable, Then I Will Have Failed Completely. Only If What I Tell You Appears Absolutely Unbelievable Have We Any Chance Of Visualizing The Future As It Really Will Happen.
Laughing
People
Miracle
What Is Becoming More Interesting Than The Myths Themselves Has Been The Study Of How The Myths Were Constructed From Sparse Or Unpromising Facts Indeed, Sometimes From No Facts In A Kind Of Mute Conspiracy Of Longing, Very Rarely Under Anybody's Conscious Control.
Interesting
Facts
Becoming
The Universe Must Be Full Of Voices, Calling From Star To Star In A Myriad Tongues. One Day We Shall Join That Cosmic Conversation.
Stars
Voice
One Day
I Don't Think There Is Such A Thing As As A Real Prophet. You Can Never Predict The Future. We Know Why Now, Of Course; Chaos Theory, Which I Got Very Interested In, Shows You Can Never Predict The Future.
Real
Thinking
Chaos
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!
Dangerous Ideas
Three
Done
Two Possibilities Exist: Either We Are Alone In The Universe Or We Are Not. Both Are Equally Terrifying.
Life
Lonely
Loneliness
The Best Measure Of A Man's Honesty Isn't His Income Tax Return. It's The Zero Adjust On His Bathroom Scale.
Zero
Funny Life
Business
We Seldom Stop To Think That We Are Still Creatures Of The Sea, Able To Leave It Only Because, From Birth To Death, We Wear The Water-filled Space Suits Of Our Skins.
Thinking
Sea
Space
There Is Hopeful Symbolism In The Fact That Flags Do Not Wave In A Vacuum.
Symbolism
Hopeful
Cynical
They Had Not Yet Attained The Stupefying Boredom Of Omnipotence; Their Experiments Did Not Always Succeed.
Omnipotence
Boredom
Succeed
The Rash Assertion That "god Made Man In His Own Image" Is Ticking Like A Time Bomb At The Foundation Of Many Faiths.
Men
Foundation
Bombs
The Creation Of Wealth Is Certainly Not To Be Despised, But In The Long Run The Only Human Activities Really Worthwhile Are The Search For Knowledge, And The Creation Of Beauty. This Is Beyond Argument, The Only Point Of Debate Is Which Comes First.
Running
Long
Firsts
The Realisation That Our Small Planet Is Only One Of Many Worlds Gives Mankind The Perspective It Needs To Realise Sooner That Our Own World Belongs To All Its Creatures.
Equality
Giving
Perspective
The Dinosaurs Disappeared Because They Could Not Adapt To Their Changing Environment. We Shall Disappear If We Cannot Adapt To An Environment That Now Contains Spaceships, Computers - And Thermonuclear Weapons.
Dinosaurs
Weapons
Changing Environment
The Future Is Not To Be Forecast, But Created.
Forecasts
A Single Test Which Proves Some Piece Of Theory Wrong Is More Valuable Than A Hundred Tests Showing That Idea Might Be True.
Ideas
Pieces
Might
One Orbit, With A Radius Of 42,000 Kilometers, Has A Period Of Exactly 24 Hours. A Body In Such An Orbit, If Its Plane Coincided With That Of The Earth's Equator, Would Revolve With The Earth And Would Thus Be Stationary Above The Same Spot On The Planet. It Would Remain Fixed In The Sky Of A Whole Hemisphere ... [to] Provide Coverage To Half The Globe, And For A World Service Three Would Be Required, Though More Could Be Readily Utilized. (1945) [predidicting Geosynchronous Communication Satellites]
Communication
Science
Sky
I Would Defend The Liberty Of Consenting Adult Creationists To Practice Whatever Intellectual Perversions They Like In The Privacy Of Their Own Homes; But It Is Also Necessary To Protect The Young And Innocent.
Death
Home
Practice
Deep Beneath The Surface Of The Sun, Enormous Forces Were Gathering. At Any Moment, The Energies Of A Million Hydrogen Bombs Might Burst Forth In The Awesome Explosion.... Climbing At Millions Of Miles Per Hour, An Invisible Fireball Many Times The Size Of Earth Would Leap From The Sun And Head Out Across Space.
Space
Climbing
Hydrogen Bomb
I Don't Believe In God But I'm Very Interested In Her.
Atheist
Believe
Insightful
He Was Moving Through A New Order Of Creation, Of Which Few Men Had Ever Dreamed. Beyond The Realms Of Sea And Land And Air And Space Lay The Realms Of Fire, Which He Alone Had Been Privileged To Glimpse. It Was Too Much To Expect That He Would Also Understand.
Moving
Men
Fire
People Go Through Four Stages Before Any Revolutionary Development: 1. It's Nonsense, Don't Waste My Time. 2. It's Interesting, But Not Important. 3. I Always Said It Was A Good Idea. 4. I Thought Of It First.
Change
Ideas
People
No Trilogy Should Have More Than Four Books.
Book
Writing
Should Have
Anything That Is Theoretically Possible Will Be Achieved In Practice, No Matter What The Technical Difficulties Are, If It Is Desired Greatly Enough.
Science
Technology
Practice
Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Magic.
Science
Technology
Possible And Impossible
Magic's Just Science That We Don't Understand Yet.
Magic
Seti Is Probably The Most Important Quest Of Our Time , And It Amazes Me That Governments And Corporations Are Not Supporting It Sufficiently.
Government
Important
Quests
A Well-stocked Mind Is Safe From Boredom.
Book
Reading
Boredom
Finding Intelligent Life Would Encourage People And Also Of Course The Opportunity Of Learning A Tremendous Amount, But This Is A Danger. We Might Be So Overwhelmed With Knowledge And Information, That We Might Be Depressed Or Even Become Suicidal - Because What's The Point If They're Thousands Of Years Ahead Of Us? Why Should We Bother? - Or Become The Ultimate Couch Potatoes.
Suicidal
Intelligent
Opportunity
When You Finally Understand The Universe, It Will Not Only Be Stranger Than You Imagine, It Will Be Stranger Than You Can Imagine.
Stranger
Imagine
Universe
Absolutely No Religious Rites Of Any Kind, Relating To Any Religious Faith, Should Be Associated With My Funeral.
Religious
Funeral
Kind
I Sometimes Think That The Universe Is A Machine Designed For The Perpetual Astonishment Of Astronomers.
Thinking
Machines
Astonishment
When The Sun Shrinks To A Dull Red Dwarf, It Will Not Be Dying. It Will Just Be Starting To Live And Everything That Has Gone Before Will Merely Be A Prelude To Its Real History.
Real
Dwarves
Dying
Moses Kaldor Had Always Loved Mountains; They Made Him Feel Nearer To The God Whose Nonexistence He Still Sometimes Resented.
Mountain
Sometimes
Moses
The Earth Would Only Have To Move A Few Million Kilometers Sunward-or Starward-for The Delicate Balance Of Climate To Be Destroyed. The Antarctic Icecap Would Melt And Flood All Low-lying Land; Or The Oceans Would Freeze And The Whole World Would Be Locked In Eternal Winter. Just A Nudge In Either Direction Would Be Enough.
Lying
Ocean
Moving
. . . Moon-watcher Felt The First Faint Twinges Of A New And Potent Emotion. It Was A Vague And Diffuse Sense Of Envy--of Dissatisfaction With His Life. He Had No Idea Of Its Cause, Still Less Of Its Cure; But Discontent Had Come Into His Soul, And He Had Taken One Small Step Toward Humanity.
Taken
Moon
Ideas
Good Morning, Dr. Chandra. This Is Hal. I Am Ready For My First Lesson.
Morning
Drs
Lessons
Overhead, Without Any Fuss, The Stars Were Going Out.
Stars
Going Out
Overhead
Science Can Destroy Religion By Ignoring It As Well As By Disproving Its Tenets. No One Ever Demonstrated, So Far As I Am Aware, The Nonexistence Of Zeus Or Thor, But They Have Few Followers Now.
Religious
Religion
Atheism
Every Age Has Its Dreams, Its Symbols Of Romance. Past Generations Were Moved By The Graceful Power Of The Great Windjammers, By The Distant Whistle Of Locomotives Pounding Through The Night, By The Caravans Leaving On The Golden Road To Samarkand, By Quinqueremes Of Nineveh From Distant Ophir . . . Our Grandchildren Will Likewise Have Their Inspiration-among The Equatorial Stars. They Will Be Able To Look Up At The Night Sky And Watch The Stately Procession Of The Ports Of Earth-the Strange New Harbors Where The Ships Of Space Make Their Planetfalls And Their Departures.
Dream
Stars
Inspiration
No Utopia Can Ever Give Satisfaction To Everyone, All The Time. As Their Material Conditions Improve, Men Raise Their Sights And Become Discontented With Power And Possessions That Once Would Have Seemed Beyond Their Wildest Dreams. And Even When The External World Has Granted All It Can, There Still Remain The Searchings Of The Mind And The Longings Of The Heart.
Dream
Heart
Men
Science Fiction Does Not Attempt To Predict. It Extrapolates. It Just Says, "what If?" Not What Will Be? Because You Can Never Predict What Will Happen, Particularly In Politics And Economics. You Can To Some Extent Predict In The Technological Sphere - Flying, Space Travel, But Even There We Missed Badly On Some Things, Like Computers. No One Imagined The Incredible Impact Of Computers, Even Though Robot Brains Of Various Kinds But The Idea That One Day Every House Would Have A Computer In Every Room And That One Day We'd Have Computers Built Into Our Clothing, Nobody Ever Thought Of That.
House
Flying
What If
We Over Estimate Technology In The Short Term And Under Estimate Technology In The Long Term.
Technology
Long
Term
... Chemistry Is A Trade For People Without Enough Imagination To Be Physicists.
People
Imagination
Chemistry
After Their Encounter On The Approach To Jupiter, There Would Aways Be A Secret Bond Between Them---not Of Love, But Of Tenderness, Which Is Often More Enduring.
Relationship
Secret
Encounters
The Best Proof Of Intelligent Life In Space Is That It Hasn't Come Here.
Intelligent
Space
Proof
We Cannot Predict The New Forces, Powers, And Discoveries That Will Be Disclosed To Us When We Reach The Other Planets And Set Up New Laboratories In Space. They Are As Much Beyond Our Vision Today As Fire Or Electricity Would Be Beyond The Imagination Of A Fish.
Fire
Discovery
Space
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.
Future
Ironic
Age
One Theory Which Can No Longer Be Taken Very Seriously Is That Ufos Are Interstellar Spaceships.
Taken
Spaceships
Theory
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. Perhaps The Adjective 'elderly' Requires Definition. In Physics, Mathematics, And Astronautics It Means Over Thirty; In The Other Disciplines, Senile Decay Is Sometimes Postponed To The Forties. There Are, Of Course, Glorious Exceptions; But As Every Researcher Just Out Of College Knows, Scientists Of Over Fifty Are Good For Nothing But Board Meetings, And Should At All Costs Be Kept Out Of The Laboratory!
Mean
College
Elderly
To Find Anything Comparable With Our Forthcoming Ventures Into Space, We Must Go Back Far Beyond Columbus, Far Beyond Odysseus-far, Indeed, Beyond The First Ape-man. We Must Contemplate The Moment, Now Irrevocably Lost In The Mists Of Time, When The Ancestor Off All Of Us Came Crawling Out Of The Sea.
Men
Sea
Space
Some Dangers Are So Spectacular And So Much Beyond Normal Experience That The Mind Refuses To Accept Them As Real, And Watches The Approach Of Doom Without Any Sense Of Apprehension. The Man Who Looks At The Onrushing Tidal Wave, The Descending Avalanche, Or The Spinning Funnel Of The Tornado, Yet Makes No Attempt To Flee, Is Not Necessarily Paralyzed With Fright Or Resigned To An Unavoidable Fate. He May Simply Be Unable To Believe That The Message Of His Eyes Concerns Him Personally. It Is All Happening To Somebody Else.
Fear
Real
Believe
No One Of Intelligence Resents The Inevitable.
Inevitable
Resent
When All Else Failed, You Had To Rely On Eyeball Intrumentation.
Statistics
Eyeballs
Rely
The Moon Is The First Milestone On The Road To The Stars.
Stars
Moon
Space
Until We Get Rid Of Religion, We Won't Be Able To Conduct The Search For God.
Able
Training Was One Thing, Reality Another.
Reality
Training
Statistics
How Inappropriate To Call This Planet Earth When It Is Quite Clearly Ocean.
Ocean
Interesting
Nautical
Religion Is The Most Malevolent Of All Mind Viruses.
Atheist
Mind
Religion
The Information Age Has Been Driven And Dominated By Technopreneurs. We Now Have To Apply These Technologies In Saving Lives, Improving Livelihoods And Lifting Millions Of People Out Of Squalor, Misery And Suffering. In Other Words, Our Focus Must Now Move From The Geeks To The Meek.
Moving
Technology
People
A Precondition For Being A Science Fiction Writer Other Than An Interest In The Future Is That, An Interest - At Least An Understanding Of Science, Not Necessarily A Science Degree But You Must Have A Feeling For The Science And Its Possibilities And Its Impossibilities, Otherwise You're Writing Fantasy. Now, Fantasy Is Also Fine, But There Is A Distinction, Although No One's Ever Been Able To Say Just Where The Dividing Lines Come.
Writing
Understanding
Feelings
It Is Vital To Remember That Information - In The Sense Of Raw Data - Is Not Knowledge, That Knowledge Is Not Wisdom, And That Wisdom Is Not Foresight. But Information Is The First Essential Step To All Of These.
Knowledge
Data
Essentials
The Difference Between Machines And Human Beings Is That Human Beings Can Be Reproduced By Unskilled Labour.
Technology
Differences
Machines
What Was More, They Had Taken The First Step Toward Genuine Friendship. They Had Exchanged Vulnerabilities.
Taken
Firsts
Steps
A Wise Man Once Said That All Human Activity Is A Form Of Play. And The Highest Form Of Play Is The Search For Truth, Beauty And Love. What More Is Needed? Should There Be A ‘meaning’ As Well, That Will Be A Bonus? If We Waste Time Looking For Life’s Meaning, We May Have No Time To Live — Or To Play.
Wise
Men
Beauty And Love
Human Judges Can Show Mercy. But Against The Laws Of Nature, There Is No Appeal.
Nature
Science
Law
I'm Sure The Universe Is Full Of Intelligent Life. It's Just Been Too Intelligent To Come Here.
Science
Intelligent
Space
The Space Elevator Will Be Built About 50 Years After Everyone Stops Laughing.
Years
Space
Laughing
But He Knew Well Enough That Any Man In The Right Circumstances Could Be Dehumanised By Panic.
Men
Panic
Enough
In Fact, One Of The Arguments For Searching For Intelligent Life In Space, Elsewhere, Is That We Have No Evidence That Intelligence Has Any Survival Value. The Most Successful Creatures On This Planet Are The Cockroaches. They've Been Around, What Is It, 100 Million Years Or So And I Suspect They'll Still Be There 100 Million Years In The Future. Maybe Intelligence Is An Evolutionary Aberration Which Dooms Its Possessors In The Way Armor May Have Doomed Some Of The Dinosaurs.
Successful
Intelligent
Survival
My Favorite Definition Of An Intellectual: 'someone Who Has Been Educated Beyond His/her Intelligence'.
Intellectual
Definitions
My Favorite
Religion Is A Byproduct Of Fear.
The Truth, As Always, Will Be Far Stranger.
Stranger
Sometimes I Think We're Alone In The Universe, And Sometimes I Think We're Not. In Either Case The Idea Is Quite Staggering.
Science
Thinking
Ideas
There's No Real Objection To Escapism, In The Right Places... We All Want To Escape Occasionally. But Science Fiction Is Often Very Far From Escapism, In Fact You Might Say That Science Fiction Is Escape Into Reality... It's A Fiction Which Does Concern Itself With Real Issues: The Origin Of Man; Our Future. In Fact I Can't Think Of Any Form Of Literature Which Is More Concerned With Real Issues, Reality.
Real
Men
Thinking
Many, And Some Of The Most Pressing, Of Our Terrestrial Problems Can Be Solved Only By Going Into Space. Long Before It Was A Vanishing Commodity, The Wilderness As The Preservation Of The World Was Proclaimed By Thoreau. In The New Wilderness Of The Solar System May Lie The Future Preservation Of Mankind.
Lying
Future
Space
The Shuttle Is To Space Flight What Lindbergh Was To Commercial Aviation.
Moon
Space Flight
Aviation
Mars Is The Next Frontier, What The Wild West Was, What America Was 500 Years Ago. It's Time To Strike Out Anew....mars Is Where The Action Is For The Next Thousand Years....the Characteristic Of Human Nature, And Perhaps Our Simian Branch Of The Family, Is Curiosity And Exploration. When We Stop Doing That, We Won't Be Humans Anymore. I've Seen Far More In My Lifetime Than I Ever Dreamed. Many Of Our Problems On Earth Can Only Be Solved By Space Technology....the Next Step Is In Space. It's Inevitable.
Technology
Years
America
Some Things Have Eternal Value, And Compassion Is One Of Them. I Hope We Never Lose That. Compassion For Humans As Well As Animals.
Animal
Compassion
Values
The Exploration Of The Planets Is Now Closer To Us In Time Than The Exploration Of Africa By Stanley And Livingstone.
Future
Exploration
Predictions
I Have A Fantasy Where Ted Turner Is Elected President But Refuses Because He Doesn't Want To Give Up Power.
Giving Up
Hype
President
The Piece Of Equipment I'm Most Found Off Is My Telescope. The Other Night I Had A Superb View Of The Moon.
Moon
Night
Views
Look, Whispered Chuck, And George Lifted His Eyes To Heaven. (there Is Always A Last Time For Everything.) Overhead, Without Any Fuss, The Stars Were Going Out.
Stars
Eye
Heaven
All Explorers Are Seeking Something They Have Lost. It Is Seldom That They Find It, And More Seldom Still That The Attainment Brings Them Greater Happiness Than The Quest.
Happiness
Appreciation
Quests
I Don't Think There Are Any Secrets To Writing In The - Everybody Has Their Own Techniques. You Must Be Widely Read, That's One Thing, Because You Have To Resolve A Tremendous Amount Of Background Information. Also, You Should Know What The Competition Is Writing, Just So You're Not Wasting Your Time Doing The Same Thing. Unless You Do It Better, Of Course.
Writing
Thinking
Competition
Perhaps No Other Year Before Or Since 1984 Has Been Awaited With Such Eager Anticipation.
Years
Anticipation
Has Beens
Nowhere In Space Will We Rest Our Eyes Upon The Familiar Shapes Of Trees And Plants, Or Any Of The Animals That Share Our World. Whatsoever Life We Meet Will Be As Strange And Alien As The Nightmare Creatures Of The Ocean Abyss, Or Of The Insect Empire Whose Horrors Are Normally Hidden From Us By Their Microscopic Scale.
Ocean
Eye
Animal
Even By The Twenty-second Century, No Way Had Yet Been Discovered Of Keeping Elderly And Conservative Scientists From Occupying Crucial Administrative Positions. Indeed, It Was Doubted If The Problem Ever Would Be Solved.
Elderly
Twenties
Would Be
When One Has To Ask, "am I Really In Love?" The Answer Is Always "no".
Answers
Asks
Much Blood Has Also Been Spilled On The Carpet In Attempts To Distinguish Between Science Fiction And Fantasy. I Have Suggested An Operational Definition: Science Fiction Is Something That Could Happen - But Usually You Wouldn't Want It To. Fantasy Is Something That Couldn't Happen - Though Often You Only Wish That It Could.
Blood
Wish
Fiction
Science Is The Only Religion Of Mankind.
Mankind
In Accordance With The Terms Of The Clarke-asimov Treaty, The Second-best Science Writer Dedicates This Book To The Second-best Science-fiction Writer. [dedication To Isaac Asimov From Arthur C. Clarke In His Book Report On Planet Three]
Book
Dedication
Three
He Found It Both Sad And Fascinating That Only Through An Artificial Universe Of Video Images Could She Establish Contact With The Real World.
Real
Video
World
If The House Is To Be Demolished Tomorrow Anyhow, People Seem To Feel, We May As Well Burn The Furniture Today. None Of Our Problems Are Insoluble... But It Seems Clear That To Prevail We Humans Will Have To Act With A Smartness And Selflessness That Has So Far Eluded Us During Our Long And Tangled History.
Long
People
Tangled
I Have Encountered A Few "creationists" And Because They Were Usually Nice, Intelligent People, I Have Been Unable To Decide Whether They Were Really Mad Or Only Pretending To Be Mad. If I Was A Religious Person, I Would Consider Creationism Nothing Less Than Blasphemy. Do Its Adherents Imagine That God Is A Cosmic Hoaxer Who Has Created The Whole Vast Fossil Record For The Sole Purpose Of Misleading Humankind?
Religious
Nice
Intelligent
It May Be That Our Role On This Planet Is Not To Worship God - But To Create Him.
God
Atheist
Fear
Astronomy, As Nothing Else Can Do, Teaches Men Humility.
Humility
Men
Astronomy
Floyd Could Imagine A Dozen Things That Could Go Wrong; It Was Little Consolation That It Was Always The Thirteenth That Actually Happened.
Dozen
Littles
Imagine
Excessive Interest In Pathological Behavior Was Itself Pathological
Behavior
Interest
Using Material Ferried Up By Rockets, It Would Be Possible To Construct A "space Station" In ... Orbit. The Station Could Be Provided With Living Quarters, Laboratories And Everything Needed For The Comfort Of Its Crew, Who Would Be Relieved And Provisioned By A Regular Rocket Service. (1945)
Science
Space
Orbit
Please Help Keep The World Clean: Others May Wish To Use It. Logic Is A Systematic Method Of Coming To The Wrong Conclusion With Confidence. The Only Place Success Comes Before Work Is A Dictionary Politicians Should Read Science Fiction, Not Westerns And Detective Stories.
Wish
Detectives
Fiction
The Crossing Of Space ... May Do Much To Turn Men's Minds Outwards And Away From Their Present Tribal Squabbles. In This Sense, The Rocket, Far From Being One Of The Destroyers Of Civilisation, May Provide The Safety-value That Is Needed To Preserve It.
Men
Space
Safety
The Intelligent Minority Of This World Will Mark 1 January 2001 As The Real Beginning Of The 21st Century And The Third Millennium.
Real
Intelligent
Minorities
The Only Way To Define Your Limits Is By Going Beyond Them.
Motivational
Moving On
Success
Even If We Never Reach The Stars By Our Own Efforts, In The Millions Of Years That Lie Ahead It Is Almost Certain That The Stars Will Come To Us. Isolationism Is Neither A Practical Policy On The National Or Cosmic Scale. And When The First Contact With The Outer Universe Is Made, One Would Like To Think That Mankind Played An Active And Not Merely A Passive Role-that We Were The Discoverers, Not The Discovered.
Stars
Lying
Thinking
The Success Of A Science Fiction Writer Is If He Can Write A Good Read.
Writing
Science Fiction
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