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Machines Quotes

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Machines Quotes

“If you tell me precisely what it is a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that.”

Ifs I Can Machines

Author:John von Neumann

“Drummers get bored. You tell them to play something simple, and it gets more complicated as they do it. If they're not a composer, if they don't have any kind of investment in the music, they'll just add a bit there and another bit there, and you think no! Don't do that. So you end up using a drum machine.”

Ifs Thinking Kind Ends Play Bits Simple Machines Add Investment Complicated Bored Composer Drummer

Author:Phil Collins

“It's no surprise that if you look at the development of the economy, of consumerism, of all these things that have gotten out of hand over the last hundred years, it happened when men were purposeless, when they didn't actually have a legitimate reason to be moving the species forward because the machines were doing all the hard work.”

Ifs Men Years Looks Hard Reason Hands Lasts Moving Economy Happened Hard Work Development Hundred Machines Surprise Species Consumerism

Author:Peter Buffett

“If you leave school at 16 then, in all probability, there is a machine that can do what you can do better and cheaper. And Trump can't do anything to change that.”

Ifs School Can Do Trump Machines Probability Cheaper

Author:Nicholas Bloom

“I kind of pride myself on coming onto things that are well-oiled machines and finding a way to bring what I bring and fit in, and raise it to another level if I can. And this [Code Black ] has been another one of those really fun success stories, much like Parks And Recreation, although obviously on the other side of the comedy/drama equation.”

“We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.”

Ifs Men Believe Work Talent Labor Machines Invention Unemployment Inventing Back To Work Work Effort New Inventions New Talent

Author:John F. Kennedy

“It's the people who work hard and earn big that keep the machine tipping for everybody else. If everybody else was equal down the bottom rung of a ladder, nobody would be on the ladder at all because it would break and everybody would fall off backwards. So you need people at the top to help pull those people up from the bottom. You can't take that and swing to the right. You can't have everybody living in the same ordinary $60,000 house because you may as well live in Russia, Bulgaria or some other Eastern block Communist nation.”

People Ifs Needs Wells May Hard Helping Bigs Would Be Fall House Nations Break Hard Work Equal Ordinary Machines Bottom Russia Block Communist Swings Backwards Eastern Ladders Tipping Bulgaria

Author:Robin Leach

“When thinking about how to deploy kind of professional and social networking into your business, it's really not a question of if, it's a question of when. And the reason is, just think about the fact that those businesses that adopt new technologies to operate efficiently and use them to get a competitive edge are the businesses that in fact, you know, it becomes one more competitive advantage. Whether it's a fax machine or a mobile phone or a new way of doing financing or any of these things, you know, these are key things to do.”

“If you want to get an advance machine tool job today, you need to know calculus. We know a lot of people don't, we can't expect everyone to know calculus, what do we do? We created a huge bubble that created a huge number of jobs to build houses and to be in retail. You don't have to have a lot of skills to work in the new Gap store that opened, at the latest Starbucks branch, or to hammer a nail for a new house.”

People Ifs Knows Want Needs Today Jobs House Numbers Huge Skills Tools Machines Stores Branches Gaps Bubbles Nails Hammers Starbucks Calculus Retail Huge Numbers

Author:Thomas Friedman

“I think it is just a matter of time before we have literal ghosts in the machine so you can create an alter ego of yourself that learns from your social experiences and extends a life even if you're no longer in the game or you are no longer alive.”

Ifs Thinking Matter Games Social Alive Ego Machines Ghost Literal Matter Of Time Alter Ego

Author:Paul Saffo

“Being on a film set is like being in tech forever. In theater, when you finally finish rehearsing, you go onstage and you do the lights and the sets and you make the machine of the production work. It takes usually about ten days in the theater, two or three weeks if it's a really big musical. I mean, it's hell on earth. You just sit around forever while they adjust the lights. And every playwright with half a brain runs for the hills when tech starts because it's so boring, and you don't want to talk to the director because the director is running this giant machine.”

“'Dance to the Music' was just Sly Stone being his natural crazy self right from the beginning. The man was an original and his first AM hit was nothing if it wasn't the example per excellence of the Sly Stone music machine.”

Ifs Men Firsts Self Natural Crazy Example Stones Machines Originals Excellence Sly

Author:Jon Landau

“Manufacturing takes place in very large facilities. If you want to build a computer chip, you need a giant semiconductor fabrication facility. But nature can grow complex molecular machines using nothing more than a plant.”

Ifs Want Needs Grows Computer Machines Plant Complexes Giants Chips Facility Manufacturing Fabrication Semiconductors

Author:Ralph Merkle

“If in my twenties I'd gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.”

Ifs Thinking Two Whole Roles Tests Machines Twenties Screens Bored Awards Dozen Hype Circuits

Author:Viggo Mortensen

“Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”

Ifs Space Impossible Air Machines Flight Airplane Predictions Insignificant Predicting The Future

Author:Simon Newcomb

“If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.”

Ifs Men Children Term Eating Machines Cease Earning Ice Cream Be A Man Earning Money

Book:Assorted Prose

Source: Assorted Prose

“You can't expect to hit the jackpot if you don't put a few nickels in the machine.”

Ifs Motivational Success Motivation Expectations Machines Tragedy Positivity Annoying Nickels Jackpot

Author:Flip Wilson

“We are all subject to the fates. But we must all act as if we are not, or die of despair...death will sweep through all the worlds; it will be the triumph of despair, forever. The universes will all become nothing more than interlocking machines, blind and empty of thought, feeling, life...”

Ifs World Feelings Dies Universe Forever Fate Subjects Despair Empty Machines Blind Triumph

Author:Philip Pullman

“A car crash harnesses elements of eroticism, aggression, desire, speed, drama, kinesthetic factors, the stylizing of motion, consumer goods, status - all these in one event. I myself see the car crash as a tremendous sexual event really: a liberation of human and machine libido (if there is such a thing).”

Ifs Humans Desire Car Events Drama Elements Machines Speed Factors Consumers Liberation Goods Aggression Crash Harness Car Crash Libido

Author:J. G. Ballard

“I read," I say. "I study and read. I bet I've read everything you read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM-drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it." My instincts concerning syntax and mechanics are better than your own, I can tell, with all due respect. But it transcends the mechanics. I'm not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you'd let me, talk and talk.”

Ifs Thinking Feels Believe I Can Interesting Steps Opinion Study Havens Machines Let Me Instinct Library Dues Mechanic Spine Taxi Syntax

Author:David Foster Wallace

“Man is a machine which reacts blindly to external forces and, this being so, he has no will, and very little control of himself, if any at all. What we have to study, therefore, is not psychology-for that applies only to a developed man-but mechanics. Man is not only a machine but a machine which works very much below the standard it would be capable of maintaining if it were working properly.”

Ifs Men Littles Would Be Force Study Psychology Capable Standards Machines Mechanic Maintaining External Forces

Author:P.D. Ouspensky

“There is one other error in the Gondsman's line of resoning, I believe, on ap urely emotional level. If machines replace achievement, then to what will people aspire? And who are we, truly, without such goals? Beware the engineers of society, I say, who would make everyone in all the world equal. Opportunity should be equal, must be equal, but achievement must remain individual.”

People Ifs World Should Believe Opportunity Individual I Believe Goal Lines Levels Emotional Equal Achievement Machines Errors Engineers Aspire Equal Opportunity

Author:R. A. Salvatore

“I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”

Ifs Knows World Needs Mean Reason Bigs Numbers Imagine Figures Type Machines Extras Imagine That

Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don't believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed.”

Ifs Thinking Way Giving Believe May Real Reason Age Spiritual Term Conditions Machines Don't Believe Satisfaction Vague Dissatisfaction Youngsters Unrest

Author:Robert E. Howard

“The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they didn't use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get. So, in the interest of survival they trained themselves to be agreeing machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking and then they thought it too.”

People Ifs Thinking Mind Ideas Reason Use Bigs Interest Animal Enemy Achieve Needed Comfort Survival Machines Safety Unusual

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life - the homebound writer's irritants. But also being kept waiting is the human conditon.”

Source: Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

“. . . freedom to creat and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine . . . It is not enough that men are not slaves; if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death.”

Source: War Within Man: A Psychological Enquiry Into the Roots of Destructiveness

“Maybe it was a Patty Hearst thing. Stockholm syndrome or whatever it's called when you're being held against your will but then you become sucked in and fall in love. Or if not exactly love, you fall into something you can't see out of. 'I can't shoot a machine gun' becomes 'Hey, this hardly has any kick-back!”

Ifs I Can Fall Love You Gun Machines Falling In Love Hey Kicks Syndromes Machine Guns Stockholm Stockholm Syndrome

Book:Running With Scissors

Source: Running With Scissors

“If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it.”

Ifs Turns Machines Serving

Book:The Forbidden Circle

Source: The Forbidden Circle

“Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to me that you’re better than the rabbits we ate last night.”

Ifs Believe Lasts Night Prove Machines Angry Magician Last Night Rabbits If You Believe Begging Prove To Me

Book:Long, Last, Happy: New and Collected Stories

Source: Long, Last, Happy: New and Collected Stories

“A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified.”

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”

Ifs Giving Mind Technology Changed Produce Tests Machines Satisfaction Tranquility Zen Motorcycle Maintenance

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“Suddenly I realize that this is what I've been waiting for - a man who depends entirely on me... I dreamed for years of a man who couldn't live without me, a man who pictured my face when he closed his eyes, who loved me when I was a mess in the morning and when dinner was late and even when I overloaded the washing machine and burned out the motor. [My son] stares up at me as if I can do no wrong. I have always wanted someone who treats me the way he does; I just didn't know that I'd have to give birth to him.”

“Everybody has a ‘gripping stranger’ in their lives, Andy, a stranger who unwittingly possesses a bizarre hold over you. Maybe it’s the kid in cut-offs who mows your lawn or the woman wearing White Shoulders who stamps your book at the library—a stranger who, if you were to come home and find a message from them on your answering machine saying ‘Drop everything. I love you. Come away with me now to Florida,’ you’d follow them.”

Ifs Book Home Kids White Cutting Love You Messages Machines Library Stranger Shoulders Over You Coming Home Florida Bizarre Stamps Lawns Gripping Answering Machines Wearing White

Author:Douglas Coupland

“Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”

Ifs Life Inspirational Looks Persons Dies Asks Bits Knowing One Thing Inspire Machines Library Saved Saving Guarantees Shore Headings Being Single Fahrenheit 451 Book

Author:Ray Bradbury

“Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him. He would not let them break him. He would hold together against anything and all. If only they gave him sufficient time to make ready, he knew he could defeat pain. It turned out they gave him sufficient time (it was months before the Machine was ready). But they broke him anyway.”

Ifs Mind Eye Pain Together Effort Brain Break Ready Months Safe Machines Defeat Broke Sufficient His Eyes Controlled

Book:The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“Gauguin flew into a frenzy! He held my head under the X-ray machine for ten straight minutes and for several hours after I could not blink my eyes in unison." — "If The Impressionists Had Been Dentists”

Ifs Eye Hours Minutes Ten Machines Rays Flew Blink Dentist Frenzy Unison Impressionists

Author:Woody Allen

“If you’re going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don’t win, you’re usually no worse off than if you hadn’t played.”

Ifs Mean Home Winning Creativity Machines Broke Slot Machines

Author:Scott Adams

“My dad was never one of those dads you could ask for a quarter if you saw a gumball machine. Instead he had one of those black American Express cards not available to general public. Gumball machines didn’t have slots for those.”

Ifs Asks Black Saws Dad Machines My Dad Available Cards Quarters General Public American Express Gumballs

Book:The Compound

Source: The Compound

“You've reached Fantasia, where the undead live again every night," "For bar hours, press one. To make a party reservation, press two. To talk to alive person or a dead vampire, press three. Or, if you were intending to leave a humorous prank message on our answering machine, know this: we will find you.”

Ifs Knows Persons Two Night Three Hours Party Alive Messages Humorous Machines Presses Bars Vampire Every Night Reservations Pranks Undead Fantasia Answering Machines

Book:Dead in Dixie

Source: Dead in Dixie

“I don't miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately, it's true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. If you're not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience... It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.”

Ifs Want Doe Matter Pain Moving Choices Lost Force Wish Can Do Hurt Missing Machines Careful Heal You Like It

Author:Charles Yu

“You don't need a time machine if you know how to remember.”

Ifs Knows Needs Remember Know How Machines Time Machine

Book:Freak The Mighty

Source: Freak The Mighty

“I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it.”

Ifs Way Littles Whole Used Machines Angry Whole Life Reactions Immature Spats

Book:The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow

Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow

“Rust, corrosion, wind, rain. The nibbling teeth of mice and the acrid droppings of insects and the devouring jaws of years. The was of nature upon machines, of the planet's chaotic forces upon the works of humankind. The energy that man had pulled from the earth was being inexorably pulled back into it, sucked like water down a drain. Before long, if it hadn't happened already, not a single high-tension pole would be left standing on the earth. Mankind had built a world that would take a hundred years to die. A century for the last light to go out.”

“Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it. If you choose a mix of contradictions, it will clog your motor, corrode your transmission and wreck you on your first attempt to move with a machine which you, the driver, have corrupted.”

Ifs Mind Firsts Moving Values Emotional Capacity Empty Machines Fuel Contradiction Drivers You Choose Motor Wrecks Transmission

Book:Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do...Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose...it's like you're broken.”

People Ifs Littles Able Purpose Loses Broken Machines

Author:Brian Selznick

“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away.”

“Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.”

Source: Tempest-tost

“It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.”

Ifs Thinking Want Littles Whole Sides Normal Machines Defeat Tiny Bridges Pounds Plates Screws Hammers Outrageous Syndromes Chisels

Author:Robert M. Pirsig

“But if you are a poor creature--poisoned by a wretched up-bringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels--saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion--nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends--do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day He will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not least yourself.”