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Machines Quotes

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Machines Quotes

“By far the most common task for which the machines are used is writing - or word processing, as it's known to the same people who call journalism 'content.”

People Writing Used Common Known Tasks Machines Journalism Processing

Author:Robert Motherwell

“Men and women ... do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have? It is a machine that crushes you in order to sustain the ruling class, your masters. Like naïve children you put your trust in your political leaders. You make it possible for them to creep into your confidence, only to have them betray you to the first bidder. But even where there is no direct betrayal, the labour politicians make common cause with your enemies to keep you in leash, to prevent your direct action. The State is the pillar of capitalism, and it is ridiculous to expect any redress from it.”

“Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually fitted for very different functions. If God had designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and power, surely he would not have used a collection of parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components. Thus, they must have evolved from ordinary flowers.”

Source: The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

“When the term "machine gun" enters common parlance, the word "machine" becomes much more sinister.”

Term Common Gun Machines Sinister Machine Guns

Author:Scott Westerfeld

“Lully's machine, Mill's fear and Lasswitz's chaotic library can be the subject of jokes, but they exaggerate a propensity which is common: making metaphysics and the arts into a kind of play with combinations.”

Kind Art Play Common Subjects Jokes Machines Mathematics Library Combination Metaphysics Chaotic Mills Propensity

Author:Jorge Luis Borges

“These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to "think," and they do exactly as they are told, no more and no less. This fact is the hardest concept to grasp when one first tries to use a computer.”

Thinking Trying Firsts Facts Use Common Computer Concepts Machines Hardest Common Sense No Common Sense

Book:The Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental algorithms

Source: The Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental algorithms

“Piano playing consists of common sense, heart and technical resources. All three should be equally developed. Without common sense you are a fiasco, without technique an amateur, without heart a machine. The profession does have its hazards.”

Should Heart Doe Three Common Resources Machines Profession Technique Common Sense Piano Hazards Fiasco Piano Playing

Author:Vladimir Horowitz

“While I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.”

Source: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell

“The parts of a machine work with a maximum of cooperativeness for a common result, but they do not form a community. If, however, they were all cognizant of the common end and all interested in it so that they regulated their specific activity in view of it, then they would form a community. But this would involve communication. Each would have to know what the other was about and would have to have some way of keeping the other informed as to his own purpose and progress.”

Ifs Knows Way Ends Form Purpose Community Results Views Common Progress Communication Activity Machines Maximum Cognizant

Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education

Source: The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education

“America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”

Source: White Collar: The American Middle Classes