Quotes About Gadgets

“We need to make some dramatic, concrete moves to escape the materialism that seeps into our minds via diabolically clever and incessant advertising. We have been brainwashed to believe that bigger houses, more prosperous businesses, and more sophisticated gadgets are the way to joy and fulfillment. As a result, we are caught in an absurd, materialistic spiral. The more we make, the more we think we need in order to live decently and respectably. Somehow we have to break this cycle because it makes us sin against our needy brothers and sisters and, therefore, against our Lord. And it also destroys us. Sharing with others is the way to real joy.”

— Ronald J. Sider

“I have a theory that kitchens, once they reach a certain level of complexity, attract new gadgets into their orbit, like planets. Only this can account for the fact that I own two melon ballers.”

— Kerry Greenwood

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

“The transformation can only be accomplished by man, not by hardware (computers, gadgets, automation, new machinery). A company can not buy its way into quality.”

— W. Edwards Deming

“I'm used to the security of living behind my online profiles and the clip art advertisdements I create to define me. I can be whoever I want to be in that world. I can be funny, deep, pensive, eccentric. I can be the best version of myself. I can make all the right decisions. I can delete my flaws by pressing a button.
In the real world anything can happen. It's like stepping onto an icy surface
you have to adjust your footing or you'll slip and fall. Your movements become rigid and unsure because behind all the fancy gadgets and all that digital armor, you realize you're just flesh and bones.”

— Katie Kacvinsky

“Don't let a busy life or electronic communication gadgets be your excuse for excess solitude - it's a talent, but a rare one, to make yourself laugh.”

— Mireille Guiliano

“The study of thinking machines teaches us more about the brain than we can learn by introspective methods. Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.”

— William S. Burroughs

“Your poor heart, in which God put appreciation for everlastingness, will not take electronic gadgets in lieu of eternal life. Something inside of you is too big for that, too terrible, too wonderful. God has set everlastingness in your heart. All the things of this world are here for but a moment and then are gone. None can satisfy the longing for that eternal ragging in the soul of every man.”

— A.W. Tozer

“I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.'”

— Quincy Jones

“I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.”

— Brian May

“The one thing I'm absolutely obsessed with lately are gadgets! New cell phones; I walk around with three phones because I have all the new ones, and I can't choose which I prefer.”

— Bar Refaeli

“Gadgets - our houses are filled with them: ones we need, ones we think we need, and others that were a good idea at the time, but have never made it out of their boxes.”

— Sheherazade Goldsmith

“Real spies don't have all the cool gadgets you see in the movies," Dak said, watching Sera struggle with the lock. "Though I sure wish we had a sonic screwdriver right about now.”

— Jennifer A. Nielsen

“I wouldn't say design has become strictly functional. A lot of cars these days look downright comic book to me, and the info-gadgets with which late industrial people spend the most time - phones, music players, etc. - are blobjects.”

— Scott Westerfeld

“My job as artistic director at the Brighton digital agency Lighthouse is all about trying to show that digital culture is about more than just tools and gadgets - it's about perceiving the societal transformations being brought about by technology.”

— Honor Harger

“Saudi Arabia has also changed. People today are connecting with each other all across the world through small gadgets and television. It's a different society.”

— Sultan Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud

“I'm guilty of being fascinated by gadgets and toys and technology, but any penny that I spend, I try to make it be a part of what I do for a living. Because then you are forwarding. You are forwarding that art, forwarding that career ahead.”

— Jeff Dunham

“Because the series is situated in the next century, and for the most part under water, there are many innovative technical gadgets. It's a kind of StarTrek. When I first came there, I was really impressed myself.”

— Jonathan Brandis

“When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple, the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.”

— Diane Abbott

“For a homebody like me, the evolution of gadgets has been a blessing.”

— Okky Madasari

“This is the other thing: we make the cost of raising kids higher than it has to be just because we feel they need all this stuff, like gadgets, certain schools, and activities that are nice but aren't really necessary.”

— Patricia Heaton

“There are times when I have to take, I call it a 'silence bath,' where I shut off all of the external gadgets. I go walk around, talk to people, and just live life for a while.”

— Patton Oswalt

“Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you.”

— Prince

“The SF genre, of course, is really an organically evolved, marketplace-determined, idiosyncratic grab bag of themes and signifiers and characters and icons and gadgets, some of which hew to the realistic parameters and paradigms embraced by science, others of which partake more of fantasy and magic.”

— Paul Di Filippo

“I love to play with the gadgets that come with film.”

— Gia Coppola

“Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets.”

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“Distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were.”

— Donna Tartt

“There's another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.”

— Edward Abbey

“There's now, for the first time, a huge gulf between the artefacts of our everyday life and what even a single expert, let alone the average child, can comprehend. The gadgets that now pervade young people's lives, iPhones and suchlike, are baffling 'black boxes' - pure magic to most people.”

— Martin Rees

“It's nice if everyone sits down together to enjoy three sounds of the bell, nine times of breathing in and out. People practicing breathing with a small bell in this way are able to enjoy much peace and harmony together. That is what I call true civilization. You don't need a lot of modern gadgets in order to be civilized. You need only a small bell, a quiet space, and your mindful in-breath and out-breath.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

“There we stood. Elephants to our left, lions to our right, only a stone's throw from hippos and leopards, and what were they doing? Playing with a doodlebug.
Don't we all? Myriads of mighty angels encircle us, the presence of our Maker engulfs us, the witness of a thousand galaxies and constellations calls to us, the flowing tide of God's history carries us, the crowning of Christ as King of the universe awaits us, but we can't get our eyes off of the doodlebugs of life: paychecks, gadgets, vacations, and weekends.”

— Max Lucado

“In defense of geeks," Justine said, "they're great in bed. They fantasize a lot, so they're really creative. And they love to play with gadgets.”

— Lisa Kleypas

“We say, "Happy are the clever, for they shall inherit the admiration of their friends"; "Happy are the aggressive, for they shall inherit a career"; "Happy are the rich, for they shall inherit a world of friends
and a house full of modern gadgets." Jesus said, "[Happy] are the meek; for they shall
inherit the earth" [see Matthew 5:5]. If we want the secret of happiness ... "meekness" is a basic key.”

— Billy Graham

“The modern computer with all its various gadgets and wonderful electronic facilities now makes it possible to preserve and reinvigorate all the cultural richness of mankind.”

— Alan Lomax

“What I find disturbing in America is the consuming desire for leisure, convenience, and fun. It seems we, as a nation, have traded God for gadgets. We have traded eternal truth for momentary self-gratification-worshipping false gods of materialism and humanism instead of the Creator of all things.”

— Billy Graham

“Regardless of our cleverness, our achievements, and our gadgets, we are spiritual paupers without God.”

— Billy Graham

“Digital gadgets often plug us into an environment that's more cluttered than the real world.”

— Mal Fletcher

“Indeed, my wish is quite simple: if we could learn to recognise and evade the biggest errors in our thinking - in our private lives, at work or in government - we might experience a leap in prosperity. We need no extra cunning, no new ideas, no unnecessary gadgets, no frantic hyperactivity - all we need is less irrationality.”

— Rolf Dobelli

“In my childhood I was obsessed with cameras but could not afford one. After much persuasion my father Harivansh Rai Bachchan bought me a box camera which I treasured for years. Initially I clicked trees and nature and as I grew up started noticing prettier things-motorbike, sleek cars and cool girls. But the hamartia of life is when you desire something you cannot afford it and when you are able to afford it you are too old to use it. Now I don't need all gadgets but it's satisfying to know that at least I can afford them.”

— Amitabh Bachchan

“The point is, this is what happens when advertising and data collection is the dominant business mode. We are encouraged to be compulsive. It's not that we're terrible addicts who need to go to an AA meeting and get off our gadgets.”

— Astra Taylor

“Beginning in the sixties, but getting strong during the seventies and eighties, everybody was sort of Miles Davis and Chick Corea and the jazz guys on the west coast and east coast in America, and then in Switzerland and lots of groups in England and elsewhere, like here in Brazil. We were all under a heavy influence of technological gadgets and changes that we used as elements to produce and create music.”

— Gilberto Gil

“Short stories amount for the most part to parlour tricks, party favours with built-in snappers, gadgets for including recognition and reversals”

— Howard Nemerov

“More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose.”

— Alan Watts

“A conditioned mind may be inventive; it may think up new ideas, new phrases, new gadgets; it may build a dam, plan a new society, and all the rest of it; but that is not creativity. Creativity is something much more than the mere capacity to acquire a technique. It is because this extraordinary thing called creativity is not in most of us that we are so shallow, empty, insufficient. And only the mind that is free can be creative.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

“The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.”

— George Mikes

“It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.”

— W. H. Auden

“People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered ... more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love - today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder - and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.”

— Rajneesh

“With its array of gadgets and machines, all powered by energies that are destructive of land or air or water, and connected to work, market, school, recreation, etc., by gasoline engines, the modern home is a veritable factory of waste and destruction. It is the mainstay of the economy of money. But within the economies of energy and nature, it is a catastrophe. It takes in the world's goods and converts them into garbage, sewage, and noxious fumes-for none of which have we found a use.”

— Wendell Berry

“Much of our waste problem is to be accounted for by the intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor-savers and gadgets that we have become addicted to.”

— Wendell Berry

“Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema ... The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating ; it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself.”

— Lee Kuan Yew