Quotes about computers

Control over computing belongs with users.

— Brandt Allen

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

— Isaac Asimov

One of the most feared expressions in modern times is The computer is down

— Norman Augustine

Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.

— J. G. Ballard

I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.

— Dave Barry

The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot.

— Dave Barry

The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.

— Jean Baudrillard

Computer science only indicates the retrospective omnipotence of our technologies. In other words, an infinite capacity to process data (but only data -- i.e. the already given) and in no sense a new vision. With that science, we are entering an era of exhaustivity, which is also an era of exhaustion.

— Jean Baudrillard

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

— Nathanie Borenstein

Silicon Valley is like a person running around in front of a steamroller. You can outrun the steamroller on any given day. But if you ever sit down you get squashed.

— Bob Boschert

There is never finality in the display terminal's screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs are negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre.

— Alexander Cockburn

It is hardly surprising that children should enthusiastically start their education at an early age with the Absolute Knowledge of computer science; while they are unable to read, for reading demands making judgments at every line. Conversation is almost dead, and soon so too will be those who knew how to speak.

— Guy Debord

A computer won't clean up the errors in your manual of procedures.

— Sheila M. Eby

The workers and professionals of the world will soon be divided into two distinct groups. Those who will control computers and those who will be controlled by computers. It would be best for you to be in the former group.

— Lewis D. Eigen

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.

— Farmers Almanac

I really don't care that I don't have what's current because whatever is at the moment, it will be infinitely better in a few months and even better months later.

— William Fink

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

— Sidney J. Harris

One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.

— Frank Herbert

Computers WORK, people THINK.

— IBM Corporation Old Adage

Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid.

— William M. Kelly

Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.

— John F. Kennedy

A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable.

— Leslie Lamport

I see no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.

— Kenneth Olsen

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

— Pablo Picasso

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history -- with the possible exceptions of hand guns and tequila.

— Mitch Ratliffe

There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.

— Bertrand Russell

I have always wished for a computer that would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish came true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

— Bjarne Stronstrup

If you don't know how to do something, you don't know how to do it with a computer.

— Source Unknown

Computers in the future will weigh no more than 1.5 tons. [Quoted in Popular Mechanics 1950]

— Source Unknown

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

— Thomas J. Watson

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

— Harry Weinberger

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.

— Weisert

Code is poetry.

— Wordpress.org