Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

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.

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!

Most people I work with are older than me and the main thing I've learnt is that everyone is a dumb as an 18-year-old.

In science, nothing is ever 100% proven.

You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1.

I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply reports a discovery.

The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.

There is not a single truth of science upon which we ought to bet more than about a million of millions to one.

Science is uncertain.

An economist is a man that can tell you...what can happen under any given condition, and his guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's too.

Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up?

It is not a sin to be seventy but it is also no joke.

That's the kind of stuff you are offered today. Scripts that have you mixed up with young men. I find them utterly revolting.

If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong.

Developing a compiler was a logical move; but in matters like this, you don't run against logic - you run against people who can't change their minds.

A soldier when aged is not appreciated; the love of an old man sickens.

If I were a physics teacher or a science teacher, it'd be on my mind all the time as how the hell we really got this way. It's a perfectly natural human thought and, okay, if you go into the science class you can't think this. Well, alright, as soon as you leave you can start thinking about it again without giving aid and comfort to the lunatic fringe of the Christian religion.

Everyone is so preoccupied by youth. People talk about how the movie business is a microcosm of the bigger picture, or life imitating art, but the business is guilty for getting women out of the way.

Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.

In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.

You don't ever ask a barber whether you need a haircut.

It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.

It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving people... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

I am super lucky. I've been in the area where things have been changing and been part of the digital revolution, the magic of software, the internet, the computer, and now the cellphone... so it's been a great privilege.

Old people always tell you: 'When you've been around as long I have, then you can argue.' As soon as they're ripped off, it's a different story.