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Quotes about technology

114 quotes from 61 people

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It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
EDEdsger W. Dijkstra1930–2002How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)
- Clever Jabs
- Computers
Any time someone puts a lock on something you own against your wishes, and doesn’t give you the key, they’re not doing it for your benefit.
Cory Doctorowborn 1971“Digital Distribution and the Whip Hand: Don’t Get iTunesed with your eBooks”, O’Reilly (11 February 2009)
- Freedom
Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1868–9), Part 3, Chapter 1 (tr. Constance Garnett, 1913)
- Genius
Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages.
Freeman Dyson1923–2020Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 8: Quick Is Beautiful, p. 135.
- History
The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple.
Freeman Dyson1923–2020Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 8: Quick Is Beautiful, p. 135.
If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation.
Freeman Dyson1923–2020Disturbing the Universe (1979)
Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
Amelia Earhart1897–193920 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928), p. 180
No algorithm exists for the metaphor, nor can a metaphor be produced by means of a computer’s precise instructions, no matter what the volume of organized information to be fed in.
Umberto Eco1932–2016Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984), Ch. 3: “Metaphor”, 3.12 Conclusions
- Computers
There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
- War & Peace
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
Thomas Edison1847–1931
During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple.
Thomas Edison1847–1931On his research for the electric light bulb, as quoted in “Talks with Edison” by George Parsons Lathrop, Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 80 (February 1890)
- Science
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
Albert Einstein1879–1955
- Science
Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Why Socialism? (1949)
- Work
The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men.
Havelock Ellis1859–1939Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922), Ch. 7
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Richard Feynman1918–1988Rogers Commission Report (1986)
- Science