Quotes of the Day for 29 July 2003

<= Previous | July Issues Index | Next =>
Quotes of the Day for 29 July 2003 - Future

It was on this day in 1970 that Alvin and Heidi Toffler published Future Shock, although it was three books later before Heidi's name appeared on the cover. Future Shock was one of those "important books" that everyone seemed to be talking about, generally deploring the frantic rate of change we were experiencing. I remember 1970 well enough to know that most of the change since then has been positive, and I think the same could be said of most of human history. Onward to the Future!

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

The future is a great land; a man cannot go around it in a day; he cannot measure it with a bound; he cannot bind its harvests into a single sheaf. It is wider than vision, and has no end.
- Donald G. Mitchell

The only certain thing about the future is that it will surprise even those who have seen furthest into it.
- Eric Hobsbawm

Take from me the hope that I can change the future and you will send me mad.
- Israel Zangwill

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
- J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers

I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.
- David Herbert Lawrence, 1885 - 1930

four