Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the vast number of deceased individuals compared to those currently living, suggesting a collective presence of history.
Arthur C. Clarke's quote emphasizes the idea that for every person alive today, there are many who have lived before them, underscoring the weight of history and the generations that have come before us. It invites reflection on the legacy, wisdom, and experiences of those who have passed, reminding us that each living person is a product of their ancestors and the society shaped by them.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of historical awareness, one might say this quote to emphasize our connection to the past.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
I believe in the sun. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity.
I offered up a special prayer, a prayer which came with tears and anguish, that some way would open up for me to use what talents I possessed for my fellow workers, for the poor.
God created the visible world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom
Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally on our planet, serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying that God made a mistake.
Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.
Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.
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