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Technology Quotes

39QUOTES

Technology quotes on machines, science and the tools that changed the world, from Bacon and Thoreau to Churchill and Einstein, each checked to its source.

An escalator can never break, it can only become stairs.

Mitch Hedberg · From the bit that ends "Escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience"; a fan was already quoting it on Usenet in September 2000.

The usefulness of a naval invention ceases when it is enjoyed by everyone else.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 26 March 1913

The unleashed power of the atom bomb has changed everything except our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.

Albert Einstein · From a letter for the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, 23 May 1946.

Certain mathematical quantities when they pass through infinity change their signs from plus to minus—or the other way round. This rule may have a novel application, and that when the advance of destructive weapons enables everyone to kill everybody else, nobody will want to kill anyone at all.

Winston Churchill · The source reads: “When I was a schoolboy, I was not good at arithmetic, but I have since heard it said that certain mathematical quantities when they pass through infinity, change their signs from plus to minus—or the other way round.…This rule may have a novel application, and that when the advance of destructive weapons enables everyone to kill everybody else, nobody will want to kill anyone at all.” · House of Commons, 3 November 1953

When I was a soldier, infantry used to walk and cavalry used to ride. But now the infantry require motor-cars, and even the tanks have to have horse boxes to take them to battle.

Winston Churchill · Recorded in Lord Ismay's memoirs, 1943

The bomb brought peace, but men alone can keep that peace, and henceforward they will keep it under penalties which threaten the survival not only of civilization but of humanity itself.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 16 August 1945

The dark ages may return—the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware I say; Time may be short.

Winston Churchill · Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946

I remember a saying I heard in my youth: “Every word of Daniel Webster weighs a pound.” But that was before the days of television.

Winston Churchill · Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, London, 9 November 1953

We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.

Winston Churchill · Article “Fifty Years Hence”, Strand Magazine, December 1931

Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue or enjoying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time the tools by which it can unfailingly accomplish its own extermination.

Winston Churchill · Article “Shall We All Commit Suicide?”, Pall Mall, September 1924

Schemes of cosmic magnitude would become feasible. Geography and climate would obey our orders.

Winston Churchill · Article “Fifty Years Hence”, Strand Magazine, December 1931

Air power may either end war or end civilization.

Winston Churchill · The source reads: “I agree with what I imagine were his feelings when he Stanley Baldwin wished that neither aeroplanes nor submarines had ever been invented. I am sure they have both been deeply detrimental to the special interests and security of this island; and I agree also with his general theme that the air power may either end war or end civilization.” · House of Commons, 14 March 1933

There is no question among scientists that this gigantic source of energy exists. What is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight, or it may be the detonator to cause the dynamite to explode. The scientists are looking for this.

Winston Churchill · Article “Fifty Years Hence”, Strand Magazine, December 1931

I hope that the raw material is as good as the methods of distribution.

Winston Churchill · On television, 1952

From being the least vulnerable of all nations we have, through developments in the air, become the most vulnerable.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 19 March 1935

If you want to make a true picture in your mind of a battle between great modern ironclad ships you must not think of it as if it were two men in armour striking at each other with heavy swords. It is more like a battle between two egg-shells striking each other with hammers.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 17 March 1914

Now you can get around it in four; but you do not see much of it on the way.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 31 March 1949

Science, which now offers us a Golden Age with one hand, offers at the same time with the other hand the doom of all that we have built up inch by inch since the Stone Age. My faith is in the high progressive destiny of man. Let us make sure that they are servants, but not our masters.

Winston Churchill · Plymouth, 23 October 1951

Take all these improvements in locomotion; what do they do but make the world grow smaller, making the heritage of man a far more restricted sphere?

Winston Churchill · University of London, 18 November 1948

If it continues, one can clearly see that the conquest of the air may mean the subjugation of mankind and the destruction of our civilization.

Winston Churchill · House of Commons, 7 June 1935

It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

Winston Churchill · The source reads: “Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.…The nuclear deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out.” · House of Commons, 1 March 1955

What was gunpowder? Trivial. What was electricity? Meaningless. This atomic bomb is the Second Coming in Wrath.

Winston Churchill · Potsdam, 22 July 1945

Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness? The simple answer: because we have not yet learned to make a sensible use of it.

Albert Einstein · From Science and Dictatorship, 1930.

Wireless telephones and television, following naturally upon their present path of development, would enable their owner to connect up with any room similarly installed, and hear and take part in the conversation as if he put his head in through the window. The congregation of men in cities would be become superfluous.

Winston Churchill · Article “Fifty Years Hence”, Strand Magazine, December 1931

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