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

> The instrument he handed over on permanent loan to the World History Foundation was nothing more than a television receiver with an elaborate set of controls for determining co-ordinates in time and space. [...] One had merely to adjust the controls, and a window into the past was opened up. Almost the whole of human history for the past five thousand years became accessible in an instant. [...]
>
> Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messiahs had lost their divinity. Beneath the fierce passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning dew. All the good and all the evil they had wrought were swept suddenly into the past, and could touch the minds of men no more. Humanity had lost its ancient gods: now it was old enough to have no need for new ones.

- 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/the-instrument-he-handed

## 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)