MACHINE QUOTES

quotations about machines

Machines quote

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

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


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

Tags: D. C. Fontana


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

Tags: Oscar Wilde


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

Tags: Claude Shannon


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

Tags: Bertrand Russell


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

Tags: Dan Simmons


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

Tags: Fred Hapgood


Machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine.

FRANK HERBERT

God Emperor of Dune

Tags: Frank Herbert


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


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

Tags: Havelock Ellis


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


Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Hind Swaraj

Tags: Mahatma Gandhi


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

Tags: Charles Edward Jerningham


It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.

CLIVE JAMES

The Crystal Bucket

Tags: Clive James


You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers.

WALTER LIPPMANN

Ten Contemporary Thinkers

Tags: Walter Lippmann