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"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."
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Exlpore more Irony quotes
"Certainly it constitutes bad news when the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit."
"I think this goes more to the idea of 'relentless irony' than 'divine providence."
"It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves."
"People who always arrive early aren't worth waiting for."
"Don't underestimate the value of irony-it is extremely valuable."
Explore more quotes by Arthur C. Clarke
"Sometimes, during the lonely hours on the control deck, Bowman would listen to this radiation. He would turn up the gain until the room filled with a crackling, hissing roar; out of this background, at irregular intervals, emerged brief whistles and peeps like the cries of demented birds. It was an eerie sound, for it had nothing to do with Man; it was as lonely and meaningless as the murmur of waves on a beach, or the distant crash of thunder beyond the horizon."
"This had not endeared him to exobiologists such as Dr Perera, who took exactly the opposite view. To them, the only purpose of the Universe was the production of intelligence, and they were apt to talk sneeringly about purely astronomical phenomena, 'Mere dead matter' was one of their favourite phrases."
"Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests."
"And yet, even while they baffled him, they aroused within his heart a feeling he had never known before. When- which was not often, but sometimes happened- they burst into tears of utter frustration or despair, their tiny disappointments seemed to him more tragic than Man's long retreat after the loss of his Galactic Empire. That was something too huge and remote for comprehension, but the weeping of a child could pierce one to the heart.Alvin had met love in Diaspar, but now he was learning something equally precious, and without which love itself could never reach its highest fulfillment but must remain forever incomplete. He was learning tenderness."
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
"There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence-or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them."
"Three million years! The infinitely crowded panorama of written history, with its empires and its kings, its triumphs and its tragedies, covered barely one thousandth of this appalling span of time."
"Even more alarming were persistent rumors that someone had smuggled an Emotion Amplifier on board 'Mentor'. The so-called joy machines were banned on all planets, except under strict medical control; but there would always be people to whom reality was not good enough, and who would want to try something better."
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