Quote #45

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas: Every revolutionary idea - in science, politics, art, or whatever - seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) 'It's completely impossible - don't waste my time'; (2) 'It's possible, but it's not worth doing'; (3) 'I said it was a good idea all along.'

More from Arthur C. Clarke

  1. Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  2. As quoted in Seeds of Peace : A Catalogue of Quotations (1986) by Jeanne Larson, Madge Micheels-Cyrus, p. 244
  3. Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  4. Our age is in many ways unique, full of events and phenomena that never occurred before and can never happen again. They distort our thinki…
  5. Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he sta…
  6. When the pioneers and adventurers of our past left their homes in search of new lands, they said good-bye forever to the place of their bir…
  7. 2001 was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history; we are sundered from it forever by the moment w…
  8. We have abolished space here on the little Earth; we can never abolish the space that yawns between the stars. Once again, as in the days w…

All Arthur C. Clarke quotes