Arthur C. Clarke · 256 pages
Rating: (10.9K votes)
“Now I can rejoice that I knew you, rather than mourn because I lost you.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“...if one had to think about every footstep one took, ordinary walking would be impossible.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Problems seldom go away if they’re ignored.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“He felt like a young student again, confronted with all the art and knowledge of mankind. The experience was both exhilarating and depressing; a whole universe lay at his fingertips, but the fraction of it he could explore in an entire lifetime was so negligible that he was sometimes overwhelmed with despair.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Don’t believe anything I’ve told you—merely because I said it.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“So the problem of Evil never really existed. To expect the universe to be benevolent was like imagining one could always win at a game of pure chance.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“There’s an ancient philosophical joke that’s much subtler than it seems. Question: Why is the Universe here? Answer: Where else would it be?”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“The Lassans were insatiably inquisitive, and the concept of privacy was almost unknown to them. A Please Do Not Disturb sign was often regarded as a personal challenge, which led to interesting complications...”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Here the trees surrounded them with an invisible, anechoic blanket, so that every word seemed sucked into silence the moment it was uttered.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“He’s a creature of today—not haunted by the past or fearful of the future!”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“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.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Soon after her beloved young brother was killed, she asked me, “What is the purpose of grief? Does it serve any biological function?”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“harsh verdict of the great philosopher Lucretius: all religions were fundamentally immoral, because the superstitions they peddled wrought more evil than good.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“The sign of its passing was written there upon the sky as if a giant hand had drawn a piece of chalk across the blue dome of heaven. Even as they watched, the gleaming vapor trail began to fray at the edges, breaking up into wisps of cloud, until it seemed that a bridge of snow had been thrown from horizon to horizon.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“This was the fundamental problem with rockets—and no one had ever discovered any alternative for deep-space propulsion. It was just as difficult to lose speed as to acquire it, and carrying the necessary propellant for deceleration did not merely double the difficulty of a mission; it squared it.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Ya sé, desde luego, que la Atlántida de Platón nunca existió en realidad. Por esta misma razón, nunca podrá morir. Siempre será un ideal, un sueño de perfección , una meta que inspirará a los hombres en la posteridad.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“Apart from this common Lassan tendency to procrastinate, Kumar’s chief defects were an adventurous nature and a fondness for sometimes risky practical jokes. This,”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth
“I don't know who I am any more. I have no bloody idea.
...
I don't know who I am. Or what my goal is...or where I'm headed in life. Or anything”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from The Undomestic Goddess
“The earth is black in front of the cliff, and no orchids grow.
Creepers crawl in the brown mud by the path.
Where did the birds of yesterday fly?
To what other mountain did the animals go?
Leopards and pythons dislike this ruined spot;
Cranes and snakes avoid the desolation.
My criminal thoughts of those days past
Brought on the disaster of today.”
― Wu Cheng'en, quote from Monkey: The Journey to the West
“Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature”
― Idries Shah, quote from The Sufis
“He didn't know what books meant to her, that books were symbols of truth and meaning ...”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel
“I thought it would all fall into place. I've changed my mind. Do nothing, and nothing happens. Life is about decisions. You either make them or they’re made for you, but you can’t avoid them.”
― Mhairi McFarlane, quote from You Had Me At Hello
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