I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent. My main purpose in life is to make read more

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent. My main purpose in life is to make money so that I can afford to go on creating more inventions.

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.

The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.

If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.

If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 robot is going to lose. Not by much. But when the final score is tallied, flesh and blood is read more

The robot is going to lose. Not by much. But when the final score is tallied, flesh and blood is going to beat the damn monster.