Quotes about tech

A collection of quotes on the topic of tech, high, doing, likeness.

Quotes about tech

Timothy McVeigh photo
Henry Rollins photo
Nam June Paik photo

“Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life.”

Nam June Paik (1932–2006) American video art pioneer

1970s
Source: Douglas C. McGill, ART PEOPLE http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/03/arts/art-people.html, New York Times, October 3, 1986

Alex Hershaft photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Meg Cabot photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Geoffrey Chaucer photo

“Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”

General Prologue, l. 305 - 310
Source: The Canterbury Tales
Context: Of studie took he most cure and most hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

James Cramer photo
Rutger Bregman photo
Rob Enderle photo
John Gray photo
George W. Bush photo
Sam Harris photo
William Luther Pierce photo

“If we're going to consider failure to comply with UN directives a good reason for wrecking a country with cruise missiles, hey, I can think of a country in the Middle East which is in violation of a lot more UN directives than Iraq is. Israel has consistently thumbed its nose at UN directives, and no one in Washington has ever told Israel, "Comply or get hit." Let's understand one fundamental fact. This crusade against Iraq isn't about the United Nations or international security or stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It's about making the Middle East safe for Israel to continue bullying its neighbors and stealing from them. Every other explanation is lies and hypocrisy. And we really can expect a bigger dose of lies and hypocrisy than usual as the warmongers work to get this war against Iraq started. The media bosses will trot more generals and politicians in front of the TV cameras and have them bluster patriotically about how we're not going to let Saddam Hussein get away with it any longer, by god, and they'll show groups of military personnel cheering when they're told that they're being shipped out to the Persian Gulf to kick Saddam Hussein's behind and keep him from getting away with whatever it is he's getting away with, which mainly seems to be running his country the way he wants to instead of the way the United Nations tells him. They will work overtime at convincing the couch potatoes and the mindless yahoos who like to wave flags and shout patriotic slogans that destroying Iraq really is an act of American patriotism. And as long as the number of Americans killed in a Jewish war against Iraq remains small, the flag-waving yahoos and the bought politicians ought to be able to drown out any dissent from Americans like me who believe that we don't have any reasonable justification for waging such a war. And keeping casualties small ought to be easy, so long as it remains strictly a high-tech war, with us launching missiles against defenseless targets from many miles away. Of course, sometimes wars get out of hand, and unexpected things happen. If the Jews manage to get Iran involved in the war also -- and that's what they really want to do, what they really need to do -- then I think we stand a pretty good chance of seeing some major terrorist activity in the United States. I know that if I were Osama bin Laden, I'd have been spending my time getting ready for just such a development ever since Bill Clinton blew up that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. I'd be putting my teams into place in the United States, assembling materials, choosing targets, and waiting for the Jews to provide justification for me to begin killing Americans on a significant scale. Of course, whether Osama bin Laden is as resourceful and as capable as he's said to be remains to be seen. Personally, I have very little faith in the ability of these flea-bitten Muslims to get things done. But we'll see.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Why War? (November 21, 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20070324011124/http://www.natvan.com/pub/1998/112198.txt, American Dissident Voices Broadcast of November 21, 1998 http://archive.org/details/DrWilliamPierceAudioArchive308RadioBroadcasts.
1990s, 1990

Richard Dawkins photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Joey Comeau photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Ann Coulter photo
Ilana Mercer photo
James D. Watson photo

“I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated austere life could not be thus explained — she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.
Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he'd didn't see some reason for her complaints — King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also there was no denying that she had a good brain. If she could keep her emotions under control, there was a good chance she could really help him. But merely wishing for relations to improve was taking something of a gamble, for Cal Tech's fabulous chemist Linus Pauling was not subject to the confines of British fair play. Sooner or later Linus, who had just turned fifty, was bound to try for the most important of all scientific prizes. There was no doubt he was interested. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab.”

Description of Rosalind Franklin, whose data and research were actually key factors in determining the structure of DNA, but who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, before the importance of her work could be widely recognized and acknowledged. In response to these remarks her mother stated "I would rather she were forgotten than remembered in this way." As quoted in "Rosalind Franklin" at Strange Science : The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology by Michon Scott http://www.strangescience.net/rfranklin.htm
The Double Helix (1968)

Julian Assange photo

“That’s arguably what spy agencies do — high-tech investigative journalism. It’s time that the media upgraded its capabilities along those lines.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Noam, Cohen, Noam Cohen, Brian Stelter, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/07wikileaks.html?src=mv, Iraq Video Brings Notice to a Web Site, The New York Times, The New York Times Company, April 6, 2010, 2010-06-17]

Satoru Iwata photo

“Talking about the definition of the niche, or niche market, I really have the completely opposite opinion. The people the other companies are targeting are very limited to those who are high-tech oriented, and core game players. They cannot expand beyond that population. We are trying to capture the widest possible audience all around the world. In other words, we are trying to capture the people who are even beyond the gaming population. So for that kind of company, we don't think the term 'niche' is appropriate.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Q&A: Video-game industry maverick promises a Revolution, 2007-03-03, Bishop, Todd, 2005-05-20, Seattle Post-Intelligencer http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/225097_e3iwata20.html,
In response to Bill Gates' labeling Nintendo as a "niche player" in the seventh generation console wars

“We're kind of a geeky tech family. When I married Ronda's dad, instead of an engagement ring he got me an engagement Macintosh.”

AnnMaria De Mars (1958) American judoka

Quoted in "Rousey Is 1st U.S. Woman to Earn A Medal in Judo", in The Washington Post (14 August 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303517.html

George W. Bush photo
Fredric Jameson photo
Philippe Kahn photo

“I am surprised at all the people in the high-tech industry focused on "making money"… If that's all they want to do, they should have a $100 printing press in their basements and they will truly "make money." Instead, if we focus all that energy on innovation, we'll change the world for the best.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Commencement speech for UCSC students 1996 | UCSC Press Release http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/archive/95-96/06-96/061196-Graduation_ceremoni.html.

Adam Gopnik photo

“It's me versus Mother Nature and me versus me. I want to see how far a human can fly with six kilograms of high-tech nylon over his head with no engine. Ultimately though, I love being able to fly like a bird.”

"SMH Article 3 Feb 2007" http://www.smh.com.au/news/new-south-wales/the-thriller-in-manilla/2007/02/01/1169919460467.html?page=3

Anita Sarkeesian photo

“For this video I tried to get a glimpse of Batman's rear end, but it's as if his cape is a piece of high-tech Wayne-Industries equipment designed to cover up his butt at all costs.”

Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger

<i>Strategic Butt Coverings (Jan 19, 2016)</i>
Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (Feminist Frequency, 2013 - 2015)

Tom Clancy photo
Scott McNealy photo

“[Tech] is unstoppable. We're getting more tech in our lives every day as we go to VR or AR and all of the machine learning and artificial intelligence and all the rest of it.”

Scott McNealy (1954) American businessman

CNBC: "Silicon Valley pioneer Scott McNealy: Tech is 'unstoppable' and part of our lives more than ever" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/09/silicon-valley-pioneer-scott-mcnealy-tech-is-unstoppable.html (9 February 2018)

Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Michael T. Flynn photo

“One night at Socko and a year of probation were no comparison to the punishment at home. My rehabilitation was one of the fastest in adolescent history. I had it coming, and it taught me that moral rehab is possible. I behaved during my term of probation and stopped all of my criminal activity. But I would always retain my strong impulse to challenge authority and to think and act on my own whenever possible. There is room for such types in America, even in the disciplined confines of the United States Army. I’m a big believer in the value of unconventional men and women. They are the innovators and risk takers. Apple, one of the world’s most creative and successful high-tech companies, lives by the vision of transformation through exception. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” Apple’s campaign says. “The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” If you talk to my colleagues, they’ll tell you that I’m cut from the same cloth. My military biography starts badly. I was a miserable dropout in my freshman year of college (1.2 GPA), enlisted in a delayed-entry Marine Corps program, went to work as a lifeguard at a local beach, and then came the first of several miracles: an Army ROTC scholarship. Little did I know that my rebellious activities, such as skipping class and sundry other mistakes, would lead me to playing basketball (which I was very good at) with an ROTC instructor who saw something in me. Not only that, he took surprising initiative.”

Michael T. Flynn (1958) 25th United States National Security Advisor

Introduction
The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (2016)

Philippe Kahn photo

“Sitting outside a cafe people watching would be no fun if everyone looks the same. It would be an Orwellian world where everyone wears the same thing and uses the same phone. Wearable tech is diversity.”

Philippe Kahn (1952) Entrepreneur, camera phone creator

Wareable, April 7th, 2015 http://www.wareable.com/meet-the-boss/the-man-behind-motionx-too-many-sensors-are-counterproductive-7383.

Steve Ballmer photo

“I think fully accepting that things are not the way they need to be, and going to work on those issues in a way that people understand you are serious about, as opposed to the tech industry generally appearing arrogant, I understand that.”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

Business Insider: "Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has advice for Facebook and Google: Don't make the mistake we did" http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-microsoft-ceo-steve-baller-tech-industry-work-with-regulators-2018-6?r=UK&IR=T (23 June 2018)
2010s

Neal Stephenson photo
Michelle Obama photo
Clarence Thomas photo

“This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U. S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new-yitna?id=UsaThom&images=images/modeng&data=/lv6/workspace/yitna&tag=public&part=24, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library (October 11, 1991).
1990s

Abby Sunderland photo

“All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging—sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 17

George W. Bush photo
William Gibson photo
Kevin Kelly photo

“As in other technological evolutions, relationship tech will begin its innovation in the avant garde, then work back to the familiar.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Steve Jobs photo

“[Miele] really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On design excellence, in WIRED magazine (February 1996)
1990s

Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“Unlike the Wikipedia editor stereotype, Wadewitz was not a young male who was tech-obsessed. Still she found Wikipedia appealing as a way to spread her academic knowledge, which was sometimes seen by few, whereas her encyclopedic entries might be read by millions.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Michelle Broder Van Dyke (April 21, 2014). "Prolific Wikipedia Editor Adrianne Wadewitz Dies After Rock Climbing Accident" http://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/prolific-wikipedia-editor-adrianne-wadewitz-dies-after-rock. BuzzFeed.
About

Gary S. Becker photo
Vladimir Putin photo

“Russia must realise its full potential in high-tech sectors such as modern energy technology, transport and communications, space and aircraft building.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2006- 2010
Source: Annual Address to the Federal Assembly http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/05/10/1823_type70029type82912_105566.shtml, (10 May 2006)

Jeffrey D. Sachs photo
Charles, Prince of Wales photo

“Instead of designing an extension to the elegant facade of the National Gallery which complements it and continues the concept of columns and domes, it looks as if we may be presented with a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren. I would understand better this type of high-tech approach if you demolished the whole of Trafalgar Square and started again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Prince of Wales' website http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/speechesandarticles/a_speech_by_hrh_the_prince_of_wales_at_the_150th_anniversary_1876801621.html
Speech at the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Gala Evening at Hampton Court Palace, 30 May, 1984.
The Prince had undoubtedly read "The Spencers on Spas" written the previous year by his step-mother-in-law, Raine, Countess Spencer, which included on page 14 the observation that "Monstrous carbuncles of concrete have erupted in gentle Georgian Squares".
1990s

George W. Bush photo
Harry Turtledove photo

“Eisenhower climbed down from his jeep. Two unsmiling dogfaces with Tommy guns escorted him to a lectern in front of the church's steps. The sun glinted from the microphones on the lectern… and from the pentagon of stars on each of Ike's shoulder straps. "General of the Army" was a clumsy title, but it let him deal with field marshals on equal terms. He tapped a mike. Noise boomed out of speakers to either side of the lectern. Had some bright young American tech sergeant checked to make sure the fanatics didn't try to wire explosives to the microphone circuitry? Evidently, because nothing went kaboom. "Today it is our sad duty to pay our final respects to one of the great soldiers of the 20th century. General George Smith Patton was admired by his colleagues, revered by his troops, and feared by his foes," Ike said. If there were a medal for hypocrisy, he would have won it then. But you were supposed tp only speak well of the dead. Lou groped for the Latin phrase, but couldn't come up with it. "The fear our foes felt for General Patton is shown by the cowardly way they murdered him: from behind, with a weapon intended to take out tanks. They judged, and rightly, that George Patton was worth more to the U. S. Army than a Stuart or a Sherman or a Pershing," Eisenhower said. "Damn straight, muttered the man standing next to Lou. He wore a tanker's coveralls, so his opinion of tanks carried weight. Tears glinted in his eyes, which told all that needed telling if his opinion of Patton.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 61-62

Victor Davis Hanson photo
Geoffrey Moore photo
Newton Lee photo

“Personal analytics combined with social networks provide a high-tech mechanism for self-help and self-improvement.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014

Rob Enderle photo

“Today's tech companies aren't built to last, as Apple's recent earnings report shows all too well.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Why Apple Won't Be Around as Long as IBM http://cio.com/article/2386164/it-organization/why-apple-won-t-be-around-as-long-as-ibm.html in CIO (3 May 2013)

Milo Yiannopoulos photo
Paul Mason (journalist) photo
Farhad Manjoo photo
Fred Phelps photo

“Westboro Baptist Church rejoices, not grieves, when we see God's vengeance… Think, America. Think Iraq. Think Katrina. And think Virginia Tech massacre, because worse and more is on the way.”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

"Virginia Tech Massacre: God's Wrath." WBC Video News http://www.signmovies.net/videos/news/index.html. Westboro Baptist Church. April 23, 2007.
2000s, Virginia Tech Massacre: God's Wrath (2007)
Context: For sixteen years, America has conducted a crusade of terror against Westboro Baptist Church: bombing and vandalizing our property, raiding our church with lying search warrants, seizing and destroying our goods, assaulting and battering us, putting our people in the hospital, slandering, threatening us with death, suing us, prosecuting us, arresting and jailing us, blaspheming, mocking and scoffing at our message from God, vilifying us, demonizing and marginalizing us, a technique that they hope would silence all those who are trying to preach, saying that we're just a bunch of kooks... Only brute beast blindness explains America's conduct against Westboro Baptist Church. By refusing to heed Westboro Baptist Church, that God hates fags, and by continuing to persecute Westboro Baptist Church, America is pouring gasoline on the raging fires of God's wrath. America may expect many more dead and maimed bodies from Iraq, many more Katrinas and other natural disasters, and many more Virginia Tech massacres. Westboro Baptist Church rejoices, not grieves, when we see God's vengeance... Think, America. Think Iraq. Think Katrina. And think Virginia Tech massacre, because worse and more is on the way.

Elon Musk photo

“Rocket tech applied to a car opens up revolutionary possibilities.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Fragment of Elon Musk's tweet (19 November 2017) https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/932322853009080320

Jay Leiderman photo

“We have an opportunity here to make the courts, as these cases wind their way up, understand privacy issues, emerging tech issues, against the backdrop of civil rights and through the prism of free information… DDoS is absolutely speech, it should absolutely be recognized as such, protected as such, and the law should be changed… The government and people who write about tech tend to call it a "DDoS attack" but in certain circumstances it's not a DDoS attack, but a DDoS protest. So the law should be narrowly drawn and what needs to be excised from that are the legitimate protests. It's really easy to tell legitimate protests, I think, and we should be broadly defining legitimate protests… I don't have to like or agree with the people that I represent to represent them. I have represented neo-Nazis and I'm Jewish… Everyone is entitled to a defense and the more reprehensible they are and maybe the more guilty they seem at the beginning of the case makes them more entitled to a vigorous and hard-hitting defense. So I don't necessarily know that there's someone I wouldn't represent based upon what they did or based upon their politics… People who cooperate, throw someone else into harm's way so they can soften the blow on themselves, I tend not to represent.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As mentioned in the Atlantic interview http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/hacktivists-advocate-meet-the-lawyer-who-defends-anonymous/263202/

Neal Stephenson photo

“There was a common saying in the biz/tech world that “A's hire A's, and B's hire C's,” the point being that as long as you continued to recruit only the very best people, they would attract others, but as soon as you let your standards slip, the second-raters would begin to sign up third-raters to act as their minions and advance their agendas.”

Day 18 (This saying was popularized by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his "Rumsfeld's Rules" document, dating back to his tenure on the Ford Administration transition team.)
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

James Burke (science historian) photo
David Allen photo

“Your system is not your tech - it's the nature of the content & the behavior w/which you engage with it.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

26 June 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/17062938246
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

William Irwin Thompson photo
Roger Ebert photo

“I said this is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/batman-begins-2005 of Batman Begins (13 June 2005)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: I said this is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it.

Coraline Ada Ehmke photo

“Fact: the solution to the problems in tech is not more tech. Especially not more tech written by privileged, heads-in-the-sand white dudes.”

Coraline Ada Ehmke technologist, activist, and transgender feminist

https://twitter.com/coralineada/status/1029162264979546112

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“I expect death will still be cheap and always available, doesn’t take high tech.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 18 (p. 345)

Jay Samit photo

“Everything is a Tech Startup. Yes, Everything!”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)