After ten years of word processing, I can't even do hand writing anymore.
Douglas Adams
Because the Internet is so new, we still don't really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of
publishing or broadcasting, because that's what we're used to. So people complain that there's a lot of rubbish
online, or that it's dominated by Americans, or that you can't necessarily trust what you read on the Web.
Douglas Adams
Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're
still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't
recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
Douglas Adams
Cyberspace is - or can be - a good, friendly and egalitarian place to meet.
Douglas Adams
I don't think anybody would argue now that the Internet isn't becoming a major factor in our lives. However, it's very new to us.
Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people over the Internet.
Douglas Adams
One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no them
out there. It's just an awful lot of us.
Douglas Adams
What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start
seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
Douglas Adams
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Anonymous
Asking if computers can think is like asking if submarines can swim.
Anonymous
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
Anonymous
There's an app for that.
iPhone slogan.
Apple
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
Isaac Asimov
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
Isaac Asimov
I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.
Dave Barry
A piece of information is really defined only by what it's related to, and how
it's related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Any enterprise CEO really ought to be able to ask a question that involves connecting data across the organization, be able to run a company
effectively, and especially to be able to respond to unexpected events. Most organizations are missing this ability to connect all the data together.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Any good software engineer will tell you that a compiler and an interpreter are interchangeable.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.
Reflecting on the creative, immersive nature of computing.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Celebrity damages private life.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Cool URIs don't change.
A fundamental principle of web architecture emphasizing stable, persistent links.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Compared even to the development of the phone or TV, the Web developed very quickly.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Customers need to be given control of their own data-not being tied into a certain
manufacturer so that when there are problems they are always obliged to go back to them.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Everybody who runs a Web site knows we're not assured of compatibility, and we could end up with a split.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I basically wrote the code and the specs and documentation for how the client and server talked to each other.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I don't know whether machine translation will eventually get good enough to allow us to browse
people's websites in different languages so you can see how they live in different countries.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I don't mind being, in the public context, referred to as the inventor of the World Wide Web. What
I like is that image to be separate from private life, because celebrity damages private life.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I have built a moat around myself, along with ways over that moat so that people can ask questions.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I hope we will use the Net to cross barriers and connect cultures.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web.
Describing the synthesis that created the Web.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the
water company supplies water to my house. It supplies connectivity with no strings attached.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I should be able to pick which applications I use for managing my life, I should be able to pick which content I look at, and I
should be able to pick which device I use, which company I use for supplying my internet, and I'd like those to be independent choices.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I suppose it's amazing when you think how many things people get involved in that don't work.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I think IT projects are about supporting social systems - about communications between people and machines. They tend to fail due to cultural issues.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I think when you have a lot of jumbled up ideas they come together slowly over a period of several years.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that's not going to get to my insurance
company and I'm going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they've figured I'm looking at those books.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I was lucky enough to invent the Web at the time when the Internet already existed - and had for a decade and a half.
Acknowledging the foundational role of the pre-existing Internet.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I'm an optimist about humanity in general, I suppose.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I'm not a fan of giving a website a simple number like an IQ rating because like people they can vary in all
kinds of different ways. So I'd be interested in different organisations labelling websites in different ways.
Timothy Berners-Lee
I'm very aware there are lots of other people who are just bright and working just as hard, with just the same dedication to make the world a good place.
Timothy Berners-Lee
If you are not on the web, you will have problems accessing services.
Timothy Berners-Lee
If you're looking for the next big thing and you're looking at smartphones and the Web, you're
looking in the wrong direction. The next big thing is the Web happening on bigger things... like walls.
On the future of interfaces and ubiquitous computing.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Imagine that everything you are typing is being read by the person you are applying to for your first job.
Imagine that it's all going to be seen by your parents and your grandparents and your grandchildren as well.
Timothy Berners-Lee
In '93 to '94, every browser had its own flavor of HTML. So it was very difficult to
know what you could put in a Web page and reliably have most of your readership see it.
Timothy Berners-Lee
In many ways, people growing up with the Web and now the Semantic Web take the power at their fingertips for granted.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Intellectual property is an important legal and cultural issue. Society as a whole
has complex issues to face here: private ownership vs. open source, and so on.
Timothy Berners-Lee
IT professionals have a responsibility to understand the use of standards and the importance of making Web applications that work with any kind of device.
Timothy Berners-Lee
It was really hard explaining the Web before people just got used to it because they didn't even have words like click and jump and page.
Timothy Berners-Lee
It's amazing how quickly people on the internet can pick something up, but it's also amazing how quickly they can drop it.
Timothy Berners-Lee
It's difficult to imagine the power that you're going to have when so many different sorts of data are available.
On the potential of Linked Data and the Semantic Web.
Timothy Berners-Lee
It's interesting that people throughout the existence of the web have been concerned about monopolies.
Timothy Berners-Lee
It's not that the Internet has been a failure in bringing people together - it's
been an enormous success. But it has also brought people together to do bad things.
Acknowledging the dual-use nature of the Web.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Long Live the Web.
Title and rallying cry of a key 2010 Scientific American article outlining his vision and concerns.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Most larger companies now see that for the market to grow, Web infrastructure must be royalty-free.
Timothy Berners-Lee
My own personal preference is that the consumer, the individual person should be protected because individual people
and the difference between individual people and the diversity we have between people on the planet is so important.
Timothy Berners-Lee
On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12
people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable.
Timothy Berners-Lee
One of the issues of social networking silos is that they have the data and I don't.
Timothy Berners-Lee
One of the things I like about the computer that I use is that I can write a program on it or I can download a program on to it and run it. That's kind of
important to me, and that's also kind of important to the whole future of the internet... obviously a closed platform is a serious brake on innovation.
Timothy Berners-Lee
One way to think about the magnitude of the changes to come is to think about how you went about your business
before powerful Web search engines. You probably wouldn't have imagined that a world of answers would be available
to you in under a second. The next set of advances will have an different effect, but similar in magnitude.
Timothy Berners-Lee
People should be able to choose who they give their data to.
Advocating for user data ownership and control.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Physicists analyze systems. Web scientists, however, can create the systems.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Sites need to be able to interact in one single, universal space.
Timothy Berners-Lee
That idea of URL was the basic clue to the universality of the Web. That was the only thing I insisted upon.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The challenge is to manage the Web in an open way-not too much bureaucracy, not subject to political or
commercial pressures. The U.S. should demonstrate that it is prepared to share control with the world.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The decision to make the Web an open system was necessary for it to be universal.
Stating the core principle of openness.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Domain Name Server (DNS) is the Achilles heel of the Web. The important thing is that it's managed responsibly.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information.
Defining the original vision.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The first thing any country does when it wants to take control is to try to control the Internet.
Warning about internet censorship and control.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The goal of the Web is to serve humanity.
Defining the ultimate purpose.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Google algorithm was a significant development. I've had thank-you emails from people whose lives have
been saved by information on a medical website or who have found the love of their life on a dating website.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The important thing is the diversity available on the Web.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Mobile Web Initiative is important - information must be made seamlessly available on any device.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The most important thing that was new was the idea of URI-or URL, that any piece of
information anywhere should have an identifier, which will allow you to get hold of it.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The people who designed the tools that make the Net run had their own ideas for the future.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.
Emphasizing Web Accessibility.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information
is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Semantic Web isn't inherently complex. The Semantic Web language, at its
heart, is very, very simple. It's just about the relationships between things.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.
Expressing belief in the Web's unrealized potential.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web does not just connect machines, it connects people.
Stating its fundamental social nature.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy.
Highlighting the social intent behind the technology.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web is now more critical to fundamental fairness and human rights than ever before.
On the Web's societal importance.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web is now philosophical engineering. Physics and the Web are both about the relationship between the small and the large.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The Web is the humanity connected by technology.
A poetic summary of its impact.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The world's urban poor and the illiterate are going to be increasingly disadvantaged and are in danger of being left behind. The web has
added a new dimension to the gap between the first world and the developing world. We have to start talking about a human right to connect.
Timothy Berners-Lee
There was a time when people felt the internet was another world, but now people realise it's a tool that we use in this world.
On the integration of the online and offline worlds.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Things can change so fast on the internet.
Timothy Berners-Lee
This is for everyone.
His iconic message displayed during the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Universal access to the web is so important. It's a basic right.
Arguing for internet access as a fundamental right.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Vague but exciting...
The famous note he wrote on the margin of his original 1989 proposal: Information Management: A Proposal.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We can't blame the technology when we make mistakes.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We could say we want the Web to reflect a vision of the world where everything is done
democratically. To do that, we get computers to talk with each other in such a way as to promote that ideal.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We need diversity of thought in the world to face new challenges.
Linking open information sharing to problem-solving.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We need to build a web that is truly for everyone: one that is accessible to all, from any
device, and one that gives everyone the power to shape their online experience and the web itself.
Outlining a vision for inclusivity and user agency.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We need to re-decentralize the Web.
Calling for a shift away from platform dominance towards user control.
Timothy Berners-Lee
We shouldn't build a technology to colour, or grey out, what people say. The media in general is
balanced, although there are a lot of issues to be addressed that the media rightly pick up on.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Web pages are designed for people. For the Semantic Web, we need to look at existing databases.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design.
Timothy Berners-Lee
What I do has to be a function of what I can do, not a function of what people ask me to do.
Timothy Berners-Lee
What is a Web year now, about three months? And when people can browse around, discover new things, and
download them fast, when we all have agents - then Web years could slip by before human beings can notice.
Timothy Berners-Lee
What is amazing is that if one of these little [document] nodes is mentioned in
another place... you can move through the information space by clicking with a mouse.
Describing the revolutionary nature of hyperlinks in his original proposal.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Whatever the device you use for getting your information out, it should be the same information.
Timothy Berners-Lee
When it comes to professionalism, it makes sense to talk about being professional in
IT. Standards are vital so that IT professionals can provide systems that last.
Timothy Berners-Lee
When something is such a creative medium as the web, the limits to it are our imagination.
On the Web's boundless creative potential.
Timothy Berners-Lee
When you go onto the internet, if you really rummage around randomly then how do you hope to find something of any of value?
Timothy Berners-Lee
You affect the world by what you browse.
Suggesting user behavior shapes the online ecosystem.
Timothy Berners-Lee
Your data is your data. It belongs to you.
A clear statement on personal data ownership.
Timothy Berners-Lee
The one thing computers have done is let us make bigger mistakes. We have to be careful not to depend on our machines.
Michael Bloomberg
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
Wernher von Braun
Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum.
Warren Buffett
Your brain is, indeed, a supreme example of, and is the ultimate, Internet.
Tony Buzan
Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you
are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
Jimmy Carter
The dinosaurs disappeared because they could not adapt to their changing environment. We shall disappear
if we cannot adapt to an environment that now contains spaceships, computers and thermonuclear weapons.
Arthur C. Clarke
For many businesses, the Internet is still a technology in search of a strategy.
Mary J. Cronin
We're fast approaching the point at which there is really no distinction between the .com companies and traditional businesses. The
only distinction will be between the winners and losers, and of course, the pace of change at which companies become winners or losers.
Michael Dell
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
Edsger Dijkstra
The computer is a moron.
Peter Drucker
Bill Gates is
the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who's going to build.
Larry Ellison
The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.
Doug Engelbart
Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork.
Sam Ewing
I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created.
They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
Bill Gates
Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no
machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.
Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
The essence of a company like Intel is execution and strategy. Intel, looked at in another way, is a three-legged stool.
One leg is technology - design and silicon technology - another leg is manufacturing, and the third leg is marketing. Whenever
Intel did well it was because the three legs were equal. Whenever one of those legs was shorter than the others, we wobbled.
Andrew Grove
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
Sydney J. Harris
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the
only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
Stephen Hawking
Supercomputers will achieve one human brain capacity by 2010, and personal computers will do so by about 2020.
Ray Kurzweil
Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.
Doug Larson
Shifting toward management meant greater responsibility and influence, but it also meant giving
up programming day-to-day in my role, which was hard because it took me out of my comfort zone.
Melissa Mayer
What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers?
Walter Mondale
Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living.
Nicholas Negroponte
The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.
Ted Nelson
To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
Robert Orben
People think computers will keep them from making mistakes. They're wrong. With computers you make mistakes faster.
Adam Osborne
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Emo Philips
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Pablo Picasso
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
Andy Rooney
Think? Why think! We have computers to do that for us.
Jean Rostand
I would say that hardware is the bone of the head, the skull. The semiconductor is
the brain within the head. The software is the wisdom and data is the knowledge.
Masayoshi Son
Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.
Clifford Stoll
Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.
Clifford Stoll
Why is it drug addicts and computer afficionados are both called users?
Clifford Stoll
We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the
computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up the questions.
Peter Ustinov
If builders built houses the way programmers built programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
Gerald Weinberg
Look at growth, look at how much time people spend on the Net and look at the variety of things that they are
doing. It's all really good, so I am actually encouraged by the fundamentals that underlie usage growth on the Net.
Meg Whitman
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually
reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
Robert Wilensky
Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.
Steve Wozniak
Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn't smooth. You'll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people.
Therefore, if you don't believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don't give up.
Mark Zuckerberg
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