Alan Turing

"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted."

"The question 'Can machines think?' I believe is too meaningless to deserve discussion."

"Computing is normally done by a human being. The human computer is supposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail."

"We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields."

"Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's?"

"Turing machines, by definition, can do anything that any computing machine can do."

"The digital computer is really nothing but a very fast moron."

"Only a man who has made a mistake is wiser than a machine that makes no mistakes."

"I am not very impressed by theological arguments whatever they may be used to support."

"It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers."

"The idea behind digital computers may be explained by saying that these machines are intended to carry out any operations which could be carried out by a human computer."

"Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good."

"Those who can imagine anything, can create the impossible."

"Mathematical reasoning may be regarded as exhibited in solving a problem by the aid of an abstract process carried out by the aid of symbols."

"The majority of those who are put to death are not executed for murder."

"We have not yet exhausted all possibilities on the universe."

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency."

"A very large part of space-time must be investigated, if reliable results were to be found."

"The fact that Gödel's theorem applies to the systems which we can conceive does not of course settle the question as to the nature of the human mind."

"I believe that the predominant cause of underdevelopment is lack of initiative."

"One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, 'My little computer said such a funny thing this morning!'"

"The consequences of ideas are not always immediately obvious."

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."

"If a man can be found who agrees with me, I shall have a peculiar satisfaction."

"I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used: God is love, Love is blind, Therefore God is blind."

"It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free."

"The human mind is surely something like a machine of that type."

"We like to speak of the invention of the radio, the telephone, and the airplane as though they were the product of genius, but they were developed by innumerable small steps."

"Intelligent machinery will be the white elephant of the electronics industry."

"In the period up to 30 June 1954, the reader is invited to contemplate the variety of machines which have been evolved and the curiosity of their purpose."