Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for a secular farewell, free from religious customs.
In this quote, Arthur C. Clarke conveys his preference for a non-religious funeral, suggesting that he values a personal and introspective approach to death over traditional religious rites. This perspective highlights a broader philosophical stance on the significance of individual choices in matters of life and death, emphasizing rationalism and personal belief systems rather than communal religious practices.
In practice
During a discussion about personal beliefs regarding funerals, someone might reference this quote to advocate for non-religious ceremonies.
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'.
All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
The God of life summons us to life; more, to be lifegivers, especially toward those who lie under the heel of the powers.
The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
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