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
There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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
If you don’t know how to do something, you don’t know how to do it with a computer.
—Unknown
Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
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
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
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
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
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
Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won’t triumph over his fate.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
As industrial technology advances and enlarges, and in the process assumes greater social, economic, and political force, it carries people away from where they belong by history, culture, deeds, association and affection.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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
Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.
—Freeman Dyson (1923–2020) American Theoretical Physicist, Author
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
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
All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent
—David Brower (1912–2000) American Environmental Campaigner
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
If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians.
—Georges Pompidou (1911–74) French Statesman
People nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in traffic jams, bus queues, on escalators and so on. It’s a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but it’s the togetherness of modern technology.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
Technology does not drive change—it enables change.
—Unknown
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
—Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English Fantasy Writer