“Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?”

“The thing to understand is that if you are going to reform society you don't start with cops. And if you are going to reform intellect you don't start with psychiatrists. If you don't like our present social system or intellectual system the best thing you can do with either cops or psychiatrists is stay out of their way. You leave them till last.”

“The purpose and real value of systems engineering is… to keep going around the loop; find inadequacies and make improvements.”

“If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.”

“If your Nerve, deny you
Go above your Nerve”

“Humanity will ever seek but never attain perfection. Let us at least survive and go on trying.”

“I suspect our human "thinking processes" often "break down," but you rarely notice anything's wrong, because your systems so quickly switch you to think in different ways, while the systems that failed are repaired or replaced.”

“[on the Aston Martin DB7 sat-nav] Then there's the satellite navigation system which is the most complicated sat-nav system in the world. And the wrongest. Always wants to take you to Bedford. Even if you want to go to Manchester, it wants to go to Bedford, that's all it knows. You want to go somewhere? "Sure, I'll take you to Bedford."”

“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.”

“You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment and make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race.”