Sean > Sean's Quotes

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
― William Gibson

“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
― J.G. Ballard

“In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.”
― J.G. Ballard, Running Wild

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.”
― Neal Stephenson

“Show some fucking adaptability!”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon.

“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

“Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”
― Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

“The hour of noon has passed,' said Judge Fang. 'Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

“When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins.”
― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.”
― Douglas Adams

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”
― Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

“Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we do not experience it.”
― Rollo May, The Cry for Myth

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
― Pablo Picasso

“It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button. ”
― John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Our technology forces us to live mythically”
― Marshall McLuhan

“We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.”
― Carl Sagan

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
― Albert Einstein

“The map is not the territory.”
― Alfred Korzybski

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”
― Albert Einstein

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
― Winston Churchill, Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!”
― Charles M. Schulz

“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
― Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. II: 1926-1929