Quotation: Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Creator: Vernor Vinge, prize-winning science fiction author; retired professor of computer science at San Diego State University Context: In 1993 NASA sponsored a symposium titled “Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the …
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Quote Origin: Part of the Inhumanity of the Computer Is That Once It Is Competently Programmed and Working Smoothly—It Is Completely Honest
Quotation: Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that once it is competently programmed and working smoothly—it is completely honest. Creator: Isaac Asimov, bestselling author of science fiction and science books Context: The book “Change! Seventy-One Glimpses of the Future” contained a series of short speculative essays detailing Isaac Asimov’s visions of the future. …
Quote Origin: It Is Not the Clear-Sighted Who Lead the World. Great Achievements Are Accomplished in a Blessed, Warm, Mental Fog
Joseph Conrad? Edgar Ansel Mowrer? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Great attainments are normally thought to require superior mental acuity, but the brilliant novelist Joseph Conrad apparently contended that a “warm mental fog” was necessary. Would you please help me to find a citation? Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1915 Joseph Conrad published “Victory: An …
Quote Origin: Nothing Is More Responsible for the Good Old Days than a Bad Memory
Franklin P. Adams? Franklin P. Jones? H. B. Meyers? Sylvia Strum Bremer? Loring Smith? Mike Connolly? Steven Pinker? Question for Quote Investigator: Public intellectual Steven Pinker recently published the bestselling book “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” which includes an entertaining quotation about nostalgia attributed to a prominent newspaper columnist: As …
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Quote Origin: I Want to Be What I Was When I Wanted To Be What I Now Am
Marlon Brando? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: We are unable to anticipate the full consequences of the changes we make to ourselves. The following wistful and convoluted expression reflects this unease: I want to be who I was when I wanted to become who I am now. While listening to the radio I heard this …
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Quote Origin: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Clare Boothe Luce? Oscar Wilde? Walter Map? Marie Belloc Lowndes? James Agate? Leo Pavia? Walter Winchell? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: For centuries moral philosophers have propounded a conventional viewpoint about the rewards and punishments delivered by a deity. Here is an example from the “Summa Theologica” by Saint Thomas Aquinas who lived during the …
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Quote Origin: If Something Cannot Go On Forever It Will Stop
Herbert Stein? Paul Krugman? Anonymous? Question for Quote Investigator: Economic trends are sometimes unsettling. For example, political commentators in countries that develop large foreign trade deficits often complain that the situation is untenable. A prominent economist responded to this fretting with a tautology. Here are four versions: Would you please help me to identify the …
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Quote Origin: Without Magic, There Is No Art. Without Art, There Is No Idealism
Raymond Chandler? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Raymond Chandler wrote influential detective novels such as “The Big Sleep” and “The Long Goodbye”. He moved to Hollywood and co-wrote the screenplay for the film noir classic “Double Indemnity”, but Chandler grew to dislike the heavy hand of producers, directors, and censorship boards on the writing process. …
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Quote Origin: I Never Argue with a Man Who Buys Ink by the Barrel
Roger Branigin? Mark Twain? Charles Brownson? Irving Leibowitz? William I. Greener Jr.? H. L. Mencken? Benjamin Franklin? Question for Quote Investigator: If a newspaper editor or publisher dislikes a viewpoint you are advocating then you may have to endure a long series of negative articles. The following three statements express this notion: Many famous wordsmiths …
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Quote Origin: Life Is a Shipwreck, But We Must Not Forget To Sing in the Lifeboats
Voltaire? Peter Gay? William F. Bottiglia? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: Many dubious quotations have been ascribed to the preeminent French satirist and philosopher Voltaire. One popular saying depicts life as a metaphorical shipwreck. The survivors are exhorted to sing while sitting in the lifeboats. Is this saccharine guidance really from the acrid pen of …