MACHINE QUOTES
quotations about machines
I think I should not go far wrong if I asserted that the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs.
E. F. SCHUMACHER
Good Work
It is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
NIKOLA TESLA
"Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency"
Who is all-powerful in the world? Who is most dreadful in the world? The machine. Who is most fair, most wealthy, and all-wise? The machine. What is the earth? A machine. What is the sky? A machine. What is man? A machine. A machine.
LEONID ANDREYEV
King Hunger
Compassion--that's the one thing no machine ever had. Maybe it's the one thing that keeps man ahead of them.
D. C. FONTANA
Star Trek: The Ultimate Computer
The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
WARREN G. BENNIS
attributed, Integrative Problem-Solving in a Time of Decadence
I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I'm rooting for the machines.
CLAUDE SHANNON
The Mathematical Theory of Communication
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Sceptical Essays
We have used the words "mechanical life," "the mechanical kingdom," "the mechanical world" and so forth, and we have done so advisedly, for as the vegetable kingdom was slowly developed from the mineral, and as, in like manner, the animal supervened upon the vegetable, so now, in these last few ages, an entirely new kingdom has sprung up of which we as yet have only seen what will one day be considered the antediluvian prototypes of the race.
SAMUEL BUTLER
letter to the Editor of the Press, "Darwin among the Machines", June 13, 1863
Sometimes ... dreams are all that separate us from the machines.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
Machines smart enough to do anything for us will probably also be able to do anything with us: go to dinner, own property, compete for sexual partners. They might even have passionate opinions about politics or, like the robots on Battlestar Galactica, even religious beliefs. Some have worried about robot rebellions, but with so many tort lawyers around to apply the brakes, the bigger question is this: Will humanoid machines enrich our social lives, or will they be a new kind of television, destroying our relationships with real humans?
FRED HAPGOOD
Discover Magazine, June 2008
Machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine.
FRANK HERBERT
God Emperor of Dune
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 ELLIS
Morals, Manners, and Men
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Motor-car, airplane, radio, atom bomb are the latest great victories of progress. Man no longer has anything essential to do, but he wants to do it at top speed and with superhuman noise. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.
JEAN ARP
Arp on Arp: poems, essays, memories
We are looking at a society increasingly dependent on machines, yet decreasingly capable of making or even using them effectively.
DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age
Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Hind Swaraj
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men, but no machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
CROFT M. PENTZ
The Complete Book of Zingers
Our predecessors endeavoured to make men into machines; we are endeavouring to make machines into men.
CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM
The Maxims of Marmaduke
It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.
CLIVE JAMES
The Crystal Bucket
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers.
WALTER LIPPMANN
Ten Contemporary Thinkers