Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room read more

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan. - "Time", July 2, 1956.

Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates read more

Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Want to make your computer go really fast? Throw it out a window.

Want to make your computer go really fast? Throw it out a window.

Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!

Multimedia? As far as I'm concerned, it's reading with the radio on!

If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups, then the whole world's going to be nothing more than one read more

If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups, then the whole world's going to be nothing more than one huge gallows.

It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.

For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If read more

For a smart material to be able to send out a more complex signal it needs to be nonlinear. If you hit a tuning fork twice as hard it will ring twice as loud but still at the same frequency. That's a linear response. If you hit a person twice as hard they're unlikely just to shout twice as loud. That property lets you learn more about the person than the tuning fork. - When Things Start to Think, 1999.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form read more

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.