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

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

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. read more

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.

The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.

Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best. Life's most soothing things are sweet music and a child's goodnight.

Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph best. Life's most soothing things are sweet music and a child's goodnight.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a read more

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident and none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They read more

I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident and none of my inventions came about totally by accident. They came about by hard work.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large read more

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that read more

I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others. I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it. I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. The dove is my emblem.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and read more

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.