WIST

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
(Attributed)

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

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
(Attributed)
also attrib. Abraham Maslow

Look, Dave … I can see you’re really upset about this …. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly …. Take a stress pill, and think things over.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
(with Stanley Kubrick)

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s First Law) (1962; rev. 1973)

But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s Second Law) (1962; rev. 1973)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
Profiles of the Future, “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination” (Clarke’s Third Law) (1962; rev. 1973)

For a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
The Exploration of Space (1951)
On people who fear contact with intelligent non-humans would "destroy the foundations of their religious faith."