“Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random”

On mistaking pseudorandom number generators for being truly "random" — this quote is often erroneously interpreted to mean that von Neumann was against the use of pseudorandom numbers, when in reality he was cautioning about misunderstanding their true nature while advocating their use. From "Various techniques used in connection with random digits" by John von Neumann in Monte Carlo Method (1951) edited by A.S. Householder, G.E. Forsythe, and H.H. Germond <!-- National Bureau of Standards Applied Mathematics Series, 12 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951): 36-38. -->
Context: Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number — there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.

Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 2 “Good Design” (p. 41)

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 198

Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046440.html - Email to WikiEN-l, Tue May 16 20:30:15 UTC 2006
About falseness

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter XV, Markov Chains, p. 407.

New Theories of Everything (2007)
Context: We say that the string is 'random' if there is no other representation of the string which is shorter than itself. But we will say that it is 'non-random' if there does exist such an abbreviated representation.... In general, the shorter the possible representation... the less random... On this view we recognize science to be the search for algorithmic compressions.<!--Ch. 1, p. 11

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 102