Miguel de Unamuno Quotes

This society turns everything it touches into a potential source of progress and exploitation, of drudgery and satisfaction, of freedom and of oppression.

I think 99 percent of women's lib comes from technology making different kinds of lives possible, and then the social adjustment follows the technology - it doesn't precede it.

Prosperity in human society is misunderstood. The difference between a rich and poor society is the number of problems that society solves for its citizens. That means technological innovation is the source of all prosperity, but with every tech innovation, you also get disruption - ultimately, social and civic disruption.

Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.

I fear … that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences.

Isn't it strange that as technology advances, the quality of life frequently declines.

A completely industrialized society is of no consequence to me.

A world in which we can fully experience the benefits that a connected society brings remains out of reach. Vested interests all too often feel threatened by the modern world, and they are holding Scotland back. We want to change that.

The shield of Achilles was a great work of art; Homer devoted an entire chant of the Iliad to describing it. I suppose that the Americans would cast and mould such a shield in a few hours

Technology itself is neither good nor bad. People are good or bad.

Ultimately, what the tech industry really cares about is ushering in the future, but it conflates technological progress with societal progress.

The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rulers - It's the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments - Too bad we've forgotten how to do it

The modern technological world appears overwhelming to many people. It drives some to pessimism and despair. It makes others doubt the future of mankind unless we retreat to simpler lives and even to the ways of our ancestors. What these people fail to realize is that we cannot go back to those ways and those days. Furthermore, for all our difficulties, life today is far better for more people and the possibilities for the future can be brighter than ever if we develop not only new knowledge, but a greater faith and confidence in the human mind and spirit.

We must, then, apply the principle of Doubt to Civilization; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence, and its permanence.

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.

Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

I can tell for sure, the technologists have made it clear that they don't care about musicians. The arts have been sacrificed on the altar of technological advancement.

As civilization advances, man grows unconscious of the primitive elements of life; he is separated from them by his perfection of material techniques.

Man has become a superman ... because he not only disposes oinnate, physical forces, but because he is in command ... olatent forces in nature and because he can put them to his service.... But the essential fact we must surely all feel in our hearts ... is that we are becoming inhuman in proportion as we become supermen.

Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency.

The whole world is pretending the breakthrough is in technology. The bottleneck is really in art.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

Civilization did not come with fire. It came with the discovery of how to use fire to heat water.

I believe that all technological societies tend to self-destruct. The reason is that the very things that make us a successful technological society, such as our curiosity, our ambition and determination, will also cause us to fall.

Science is of value because it can produce something.