Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher
Battles, in these ages, are transacted by mechanism; with the slightest possible development of human individuality or spontaneity; men now even die, and kill one another, in an artificial manner.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.
—Bill Gates (b.1955) American Businessperson, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Author
Computers in the future will weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
—Unknown
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Theory: when you have ideas. Ideology: when ideas have you.
—Anonymous
I have no doubt that it is possible to give a new direction to technological development, a direction that shall lead it back to the real needs of man, and that also means: to the actual size of man. Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful. To go for giantism is to go for self-destruction.
—E. F. Schumacher (1911–77) German Mathematician, Economist
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. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.
—Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) American Theoretical Physicist, Author
If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery, in impoverishment.
—Michael Harrington (1928–89) American Socialist, Writer, Political Activist, Academic
The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means of going backward.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man – if man is not enslaved by it.
—Jonas Salk (1914–95) American Microbiologist
The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent
—David Brower (1912–2000) American Environmental Campaigner
Most people who sneer at technology would starve to death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.
—Stewart Brand (b.1938) American Writer, Editor
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable
—Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) American Writer, Critic, Naturalist
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
—Omar Bradley (1893–1981) American Military Leader
When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man’s soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Technology…is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.
—C. P. Snow
The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.
—Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) American Theoretical Physicist, Author
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures—in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator