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Childhood's End QUOTES

Childhood's End QUOTES

1 " Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

2 " There were, however, a few exceptions.
One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where it was hoped that a hyena would give him a rude awakening. For all practical purposes he could, therefore, be regarded as absent. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

3 " …once science had declared a thing possible, there was no escape from its eventual realization… "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

4 " ...a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

5 " Let us say that you might have become a telepathic cancer, a malignant mentality which in its inevitable dissolution would have poisoned other and greater minds. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

6 " That requires as much power as a small radio transmitter--and rather similar skills to operate. For it's the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler's career as a dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

7 " Imagine that every man’s mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

8 " Western man had relearned-what the rest of the world had never forgotten-that there was nothing sinful in leisure as long as it did not degenerate into mere sloth. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

9 " …mysticism –perhaps the main aberration of the human mind. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

10 " No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

11 " Science is the only religion of mankind. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

12 " There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

13 " Now I understand,” said the last man. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

14 " Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias—boredom. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

15 " In this single galaxy of ours there are eighty-seven thousand million suns. [...] In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world. [...] It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

16 " They would never know how lucky they had been. For a lifetime, mankind had achieved as much happiness as any race can ever know. It had been the Golden Age. But gold was also the color of sunset, of autumn: and only Karellen’s ears could catch the first wailings of the winter storms. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

17 " man’s beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

18 " Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

19 " all the world’s religions cannot be right, and they know it. Sooner or later man has to learn the truth: "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End

20 " There was nothing left of Earth. They had leeched away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the Sun. "

― Arthur C. Clarke , Childhood's End