Larry Wall Quotes

Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.

Even some of the greatest technology-led revolutions, or allegedly technology-led, really were only made possible because of trends already present.

The kids of today have to be better than us. We must strive to create tools adequate for human beings that come with other things that are, at least, different from those we used to have.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

I'm very pro-science and pro-technology; I believe that these have been key drivers of progress in the world in the last centuries.

The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.

Look - There's good creepy and there's bad creepy. Today's creepy is tomorrow's necessity.

Everything that we are making, we are making more and more complex.

If you do an interview in 1960, something it's bound to change by the year 2000. And if it doesn't, then there's something drastically wrong.

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

For most of human civilization, the pace of innovation has been so slow that a generation might pass before a discovery would influence your life, culture or the conduct of nations.

I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.

I'm really convinced that our descendants a century or two from now will look back at us with the same pity that we have toward the people in the field of science two centuries ago.

Modernity is not a problem to be overcome but a challenge to be met.

Machines and their development provide the greatest opportunity in the whole history of mankind to improve the lot of the individual human being.

What seems impossible today, may half a century hence have become commonplace.

Innovation and commerce are as powerful tools for creating social progress as they are for driving technological advancement.

My obsession is with technology and how it can improve human life. In my view, what we have seen in the last 300 years is only a trailer.

Engineers and entrepreneurs are fundamentally dissatisfied with the way the world is and want to make it better. There are so many things you could do with technology if you can match it up with real problems.

We adapt to technological progress by raising our minimum standards of living and working to stay above this rising threshold.

As humans, we've always innovated our way out of problems, whether it was the first torch to light a dark cave or the steam engine that sparked a revolution.

The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of people who see that better ways are available; thanks to technology.

Civilization may be said indeed to be the creation of its outlaws.

The true epic of our times is not "Arm's and the Man," but "Tools and the Man"--an infinitely wider kind of epic.

These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.