Stephen Jay Gould Quotes

A good piece of technology dreams of the day when it will be replaced by a newer piece of technology. This is one definition of progress.

Obsolescence is the key to innovation.

Societies advance through innovation every bit as much as economies do.

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 new always competes with the old and destroys it. Men who build railroads destroy stage coach lines.

No particular technology lasts for long.

Everything new endangers something old. A new machine replaces human hands; a new source of power threatens old businesses; a new trade route wipes out the supremacy of old ports and brings prosperity to new ones. This is the price that must be paid for progress and it is worth it.

Obsolescence is the very hallmark of progress.

Technological change is both familiar and easy to observe.

No one has ever been able to stop the process and evolution of technology, not even I.B.M. That is going to continue. Those who grab it and move ahead with it will determine the future in this industry.

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.

We know that, when it comes to technology and the economy, if you're not constantly moving forward, then - without a doubt - you're moving backwards.

Technology changes all the time; human nature, hardly ever.

If you run from technology, it will chase you.

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

The move to modernity has its risks but the greater risk is not moving at all.

Every time there is a major shift in technology, it's been hugely exciting and scary at the same time. I have seen some really drastic changes in technology, like shooting only film to video to digital.

You can't uninvent things, you can only make them obsolete... Ronald Reagan understood that the surest method of neutralising any weapon is to make it obsolete.

The world is littered with corpses that predicted technology in a particular arena was done. If there's another gigantic step change out there, we don't yet know what it is.

The intelligent use of science and technology are the tools with which to achieve a new direction.

Every age thinks it's the modern age, but this one really is. Electricity is going to change everything. Everything!

I believe innovation is the most powerful force for change in the world. People who are pessimistic about the future tend to extrapolate from the present in a straight line. But innovation fundamentally shifts the trajectory of development.

No amount of artificial protection can permanently maintain an obsolete product, an inferior process or a moribund organization against competitors which are based on scientifically improved products or methods.

The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.