Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

I believe there's other forms of intelligence in the universe. I've seen and heard some pretty convincing UFO stuff. Besides, if we're the most intelligent things in the universe... well, that's just depressing.

Intelligent life can't be all that common because it's really rare on Earth and especially since we define ourselves to be intelligent. But in the eyes of an alien coming here who has the technology to make it here, they might observe us and conclude that there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

It would be incredibly presumptuous and self-serving of me to believe that Facebook was the end of history. The only way it could possibly be the end of history is if it becomes some sort of artificial super intelligence that takes over the world.

I actually think the chances that we'll find E.T. are pretty good.

Wonder if there is life on another planet? Let's suppose there is. Suppose further, that only one star in a trillion has a planet that could support life. If that were the case, then there would be at least 100 million planets that harbored life.

Discovering traces of life on Mars would be of tremendous scientific significance: The first time that any signs of extraterrestrial life had ever been detected. Many people would also find it heartening to learn that we're not entirely alone in this vast, cold cosmos.

It's not going to do any good to land on Mars if we're stupid.

People don't want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology - all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.

One in 200 stars has habitable Earth-like planets surrounding it - in the galaxy, half a billion stars have Earth-like planets going around them - that's huge, half a billion. So when we look at the night sky, it makes sense that someone is looking back at us.

Ethan Allen was convinced that every planet out there has its own intelligent extraterrestrials. And this, as you can imagine, is a radical, inspiring, but very unsettling, idea.

The universe is large and old, and the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere, so there's no reason to think that Earth would be unique in that regard. Whether of not the life became intelligent is a different question, and we'll see if we find that.

I learned the hard way how desperately primitive is the technology we have for monitoring the health of someone with a chronic illness.

If the government regulates against use of drones or stem cells or artificial intelligence, all that means is that the work and the research leave the borders of that country and go someplace else.

Science fiction is my way of pushing the imagination onward. It's a way to understand how the world will look in the future.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

We cannot blindly embrace the benefits of technology.

Confined to the use of his own physical power, man is one of the most helpless animals. In proportion to his size and requirements, he is unquestionably very weak and slow. But the superiority of his organism consists precisely in the aptitude of his brain and the fitness of his hands for the contrivance and use of mechanical devices, through which he may take from nature, by artifice, those forces in which he is naturally wanting

We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable.

Science fiction is one of the smartest genres around because you have to have so much forethought.

Up to this day, there has been no proof of the existence of any intelligence other than the human.

I'm a fan of hard science fiction, which is science fiction that is possible.

Why should we consider defining intelligence as something global and as something that hasn't actually yet appeared on Earth? It may be useful for envisioning the future of our own civilization and any others that may be out there among the stars. It might give us something to strive for.