In fact, one of the arguments for searching for intelligent life in space, elsewhere, is that we have no evidence that intelligence has any survival value. The most successful creatures on this planet are the cockroaches. They've been around, what is it, 100 million years or so and I suspect they'll still be there 100 million years in the future. Maybe intelligence is an evolutionary aberration which dooms its possessors in the way armor may have doomed some of the dinosaurs.

Arthur C. Clarke

The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.

Arthur C. Clarke

moving-on success motivational

In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.

Arthur C. Clarke

loving-life achievement two

If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs-those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures-then we may be certain of this: for all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean- 'spaceship.'

Arthur C. Clarke

successful men mean

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Arthur C. Clarke

lonely loneliness life

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

Arthur C. Clarke

intelligent space science

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

possible-and-impossible technology science

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke

tragedy atheist religion

The object of teaching a child is to enable the child to get along without the teacher. We need to educate our children for their future, not our past.

Arthur C. Clarke

teaching teacher children

Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas.

Arthur C. Clarke

maturity character civilization

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

motivational positive inspirational

The future is not to be forecast, but created.

Arthur C. Clarke

forecasts

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?

Arthur C. Clarke

atheist names people

The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.

Arthur C. Clarke

lenses fit mind

Until we get rid of religion, we won't be able to conduct the search for God.

Arthur C. Clarke

able

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return...

Arthur C. Clarke

eras two past

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

Arthur C. Clarke

dangerous-ideas three done

I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.

Arthur C. Clarke

inspirational funny believe

When you finally understand the universe, it will not only be stranger than you imagine, it will be stranger than you can imagine.

Arthur C. Clarke

imagine universe stranger

My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.

Arthur C. Clarke

my-favorite definitions intellectual

What we need is a machine that will let us see the other guy's point of view.

Arthur C. Clarke

guy views needs