GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Our civilization is no more than the sum of all the dreams that earlier ages have brought to fulfillment. And so it must always be, for if men cease to dream, if they turn their backs upon the universe, the story of our race will end.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Challenge of the Spaceship: Astronautics and its Impact upon Human Society. A paper read to the British Interplanetary Society in London on 5 October 1946 and published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 6, No. 3, December 1946. It was also included in his 1959 book The Challenge of the Spaceship. The paper has been described by an historian (Robert Poole, History and Technology, September 2012) as,

“[O]ne of the founding manifestoes of the Space Age, and helped to establish him as the West’s leading techno-prophet. Restating his ideas in subsequent factual and fictional works, Clarke successfully propagated the belief that man’s destiny lay in space and that the process was already underway.”

Our civilization is no more than the sum of all the dreams that earlier ages have brought to fulfillment. And so it must always be, for if men cease to dream, if they turn their backs upon the universe, the story of our race will end.

Arthur C. Clarke

The Challenge of the Spaceship: Astronautics and its Impact upon Human Society. A paper read to the British Interplanetary Society in London on 5 October 1946 and published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 6, No. 3, December 1946. The paper has been described by historians (Robert Poole, History and Technology, September 2012) as,

“[O]ne of the founding manifestoes of the Space Age, and helped to establish him as the West’s leading techno-prophet. Restating his ideas in subsequent factual and fictional works, Clarke successfully propagated the belief that man’s destiny lay in space and that the process was already underway.”

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible The book was published in 1962, and was based on essays written during the period 1959 - 1961. The line became known as the third of Clarke’s three laws, although the three-law formulation is associated with later editions/essays.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke

What he called his First Law, quoted by Jeremy Bernsteinin in his article Out of the Ego Chamber, The New Yorker magazine, 9 August 1969.

I think in the long run the money that's been put into the space program is one of the best investments this country has ever made ... This is a downpayment on the future of mankind. It's as simple as that.

Arthur C. Clarke

in conversation with Harry Reasoner and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on CBS TV, 20 July 1969. (Source: 10:56:20 PM EDT 7/20/69: The Historic Conquest of the Moon as Reported to the American People by CBS News over the CBS Television Network, CBS News transcript/book.)