Quotes from The City and the Stars

“If we both believe that we have nothing to learn from the other, is it not obvious that we will both be wrong?”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Long ago it had been discovered that without some crime or disorder, Utopia soon became unbearably dull.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“And there still remained, for all men to share, the linked worlds of Love and Art. Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and Art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with Love.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart, and only its absence can produce any emotional effect.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“The rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, nor the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions each of which claimed with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Men had sought beauty in many forms—in sequences of sound, in lines upon paper, in surfaces of stone, in the movements of the human body, in colours ranged through space.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Faith in one’s own destiny was among the most valuable of the gifts which the gods could bestow upon a man,”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“He did not wander aimlessly, though he never knew which village would be his next port of call. He was seeking no particular place, but a mood, an influence—indeed, a way of life.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“However much the universe and its mysteries might call him, this was where he was born and where he belonged. It would never satisfy him, yet always he would return. He had gone half-way across the Galaxy to learn this simple truth.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Men had sought beauty in many forms—in sequences of sound, in lines upon paper, in surfaces of stone, in the movements of the human body, in colours ranged through space. All these media still survived in Diaspar and down the ages others had been added to them. No one was yet certain if all the possibilities of art had been discovered, or if it had any meaning outside the mind of Man. And the same was true of love.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Alvin was an explorer, and 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.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“They had forgotten much, but they did not know it. They were as perfectly fitted to their environment as it was to them—for both had been designed together. What was beyond the walls of the city was no concern of theirs; it was something that had been shut out of their minds. Diaspar was all that existed, all that they needed, all that they could imagine. It mattered nothing to them that Man had once possessed the stars.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“In Lys, it seemed, all love began with mental contact, and it might be months or years before a couple actually met. In this way, Hilvar explained, there could be no false impressions, no deceptions, on either side. Two people whose minds were open to one another could hide no secrets.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart,”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“No single individual, however eccentric or brilliant, could affect the enormous inertia of a society that had remained virtually unchanged for over a billion years.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Like every human being, Alvin was in some measure a machine, his actions predetermined by his inheritance. That did not alter his need for understanding and sympathy, nor did it render him immune to loneliness or frustration. To his own people, he was so unaccountable a creature that they sometimes forgot that he still shared their emotions.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“It was idle to speculate, to build pyramids of surmise on a foundation of ignorance.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Otsusta minu üle mu tegude järgi, ehkki neid on vähe, mitte mu sõnade järgi, kuigi neid on palju.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Behind Alystra was the known world, full of wonder yet empty of surprise, drifting like a brilliant but tightly closed bubble down the river of time. Ahead, separated from her by no more than the span of a few footsteps, was the empty wilderness—the world of the desert—the world of the Invaders.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Long ago the signalling had become no more than a meaningless ritual, now maintained by an animal which had forgotten to learn and a robot which had never known to forget.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Oh, I can think of many reasons. Perhaps it’s a signal, so that any strange ship entering our universe will know where to look for life. Perhaps it marks the centre of galactic administration. Or perhaps—and somehow I feel that this is the real explanation—it’s simply the greatest of all works of art. But it’s foolish to speculate now. In a few hours we shall know the truth.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him—or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it—but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“The history of the Universe must be a mass of such disconnected threads, and no one could say which were important and which were trivial.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Linked, because love without art is merely the slaking of desire, and Art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with Love. Men”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“You are rather too fond of talking in riddles,’ complained Jeserac.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania. Throughout”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“And as for the Council—tell it that a road that has once been opened cannot be closed again merely by passing a resolution.’ The”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“A thousand years in one body is long enough for any man; at the end of that time, his mind is clogged with memories, and he asks only for rest—or a new beginning.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

“Evolution and science had come to the same answers; and the work of Nature had lasted longer. At”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The City and the Stars

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Popular quotes

“My mother didn't like to hear profanity, and she certainly never spoke it. She had always told us that swearing was the sign of a lackluster vocabulary and, worse, a stunted imagination. "There are so many interesting words to use, along or in combination," she said, "that I don't know why anyone would fall back on one-syllable obscenities.”
― quote from The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less

“Stătea întinsă pe spate cu braţele desfăcute, ca într-o sfârşeală din dragoste ; de atâta voluptate timpul i se părea de bună seamă fără sfârşit şi cânta, mai mult în suspine, un cântecel oarecare.
Văzând că el rămâne tăcut, dus pe gânduri, tresări speriată şi începu să-l smucească apoi ca un copil, spunându-i :
- Hai, vino, aici ne sufocăm.
Se îmbrăţişară, trupul ei puţintel ardea sub mâinile lui K., se rostogoliră cu câţiva metri mai încolo într-o inconştienţă din care K. încerca mereu să se smulgă făcând eforturi zadarnice, se loviră cu un zgomot surd de uşa lui Klamm şi apoi rămaseră culcaţi în micile băltoace de bere şi în alte gunoaie răspândite pe podea. Acolo petrecură ore întregi, ore de răsuflare în comun, de bătăi de inimă comune, ore în care K. avea mereu senzaţia că se rătăceşte pe meleaguri străine sau că a ajuns atât de departe ca nimeni înaintea lui, într-o străinătate unde nici măcar aerul nu avea vreun comportament din atmosfera de acasă, unde trebuie să te sufoci de înstrăinare şi unde, împresurat de tentaţiile ei absurde, nu poţi face totuşi altceva decât să mergi înainte, să rătăceşti mai departe. Aşa că nu simţi spaimă în primul moment, ci mai degrabă o revenire consolatoare din obnubilaţie, când auzi că o voce profundă, poruncitor-calmă, o strigă pe Frieda din camera lui Klamm. "Frieda !" îi zice K. la ureche, transmiţându-i astfel chemarea. Mânată de o supunere de-a dreptul înnăscută, Frieda voia să sară în picioare, dar apoi îşi aminti unde se află, îşi întinse braţele, râse încetişor şi zise :
- Cum îţi închipui că o să mă duc. Nu mai mă duc niciodată la el.
K. voia să o contrazică, s-o convingă să se ducă la Klamm, începu să strângă de pe jos ce mai rămăsese din bluza ei, dar nu era în stare să spună nimic, era prea fericit s-o ţină pe Frieda între mâinile lui, prea fericit şi temător în acelaşi timp, căci i se păre că dacă Frieda îl părăseşte, îl părăseşte tot ce-i al lui.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Slottet

“I would like to think she turns around and goes home and does one thing differently that day because of what she has imagined, and again the day after that, and the day after that.”
― Emmi Itäranta, quote from Memory of Water

“It is always the little things that build up. Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years.
You don't even notice it creeping in. It happens, trickle by trickle.
You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a 'taken-for-granted' attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone have been established.

A zone that is hard to get out of.”
― Preeti Shenoy, quote from The Secret Wish List

“What's one more meaningless act of violence on that zoo of a planet?
It would be appropriate.
When in Rome; burn it.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The State of the Art

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