# Quote — Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End

> It was a tribute to the Overlords' psychology, and to their careful years of preparation, that only a few people fainted. Yet there could have been fewer still, anywhere in the world, who did not feel the ancient terror brush for one awful instant against their minds before reason banished it forever.
>
> There was no mistake. The leathery wings, the little horns, the barbed tail—all were there. The most terrible of all legends had come to life, out of the unknown past. Yet now it stood smiling, in ebon majesty, with the sunlight gleaming upon its tremendous body, and with a human child resting trustfully on either arm.

- Author: [Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md)
- Book: [Childhood's End](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Childhood's_End#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end/it-was-a-tribute

## More from this book

> A century ago we came to your world and saved you from self-destruction. I do not believe that anyone would deny that fact—but what that self-destruction was, you never guessed.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end/a-century-ago.md)

> "All political problems," Karellen had once told Stormgren, "can be solved by the correct application of power"

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end/all-political-problems.md)

> A well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end/a-well-stocked-mind.md)