Arthur C. Clarke Quotes

And as I have always said, the only thing more scary than knowing we are not alone in the universe is knowing we are alone in the universe.

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

I believe we are the only sentient beings in the universe, and I believe that 500 years from now, we will still be the only sentient beings around.

The Eerie Silence: are we alone in the universe?

Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

Human beings have long wondered whether they are alone in the universe.

As the romance of manned space exploration has waned, the drive today is to find our living, thinking counterparts in the universe. For all the excitement, however, the search betrays a profound melancholy - a lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence.

We may be living at that moment, on the cusp, when we go from being a species that feels a kind of loneliness in the cosmos to actually one sometime in the not too distant future being able to confirm the existence of other intelligent life.

I suppose my interest in looking for life elsewhere in the universe really dates back to my teens. What teenager doesn't look up at the sky at night and think am I alone in the universe? Well most people get over it, but I never did and though I made a career more in physics and cosmology than astrobiology I've always had a soft spot for the subject of life because it does seem so mysterious.

That is a big question we all have: are we alone in the universe? And exoplanets confirm the suspicion that planets are not rare.

If we're looking for intelligence in the universe I think everybody assumes that this has to start with life and so the question is: "How likely is it that there will be life elsewhere in the universe?"

Yes, of course. Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe? Millions of stars, and we're supposed to be the only living creatures? No, there are many things out there, we just don't know.

When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe.

The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief.

We don't really understand most of what's happening in the cosmos. Is there any afterlife? Who knows.

For each one of us stands alone in the midst of a universe.

People quite often think of the question 'Are we alone in the universe?' in terms of other civilizations out there: life forms that have reached at least our level of technological development.

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

It would seem staggeringly arrogant to think we were the only ones in the universe, but at the same time, I don't know if contact has been made yet or not because you think something like that would be hard to cover up. I'm still on the fence. I keep an open mind about all of these things.

It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe.

It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realizing how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place.

I think it's fantastically narcissistic to believe that in the entire universe, with all of the planetary systems that we've already discovered and the countless others that are out there, that we are the only forms of life. Now, the real question is not are there other forms of life out there, but are there other intelligent forms of life out there right now. Because the universe is not only really big but it's also really long. It's been around for a long time; it's going to be around for a long time.

The universe is a big place. If I was lost up there, how would you ever find me

It seems unlikely that we're alone in the universe. But I'm pretty sure nobody's hiding any contact.

Our sun is one of a 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity.