Alan Kay

Computer Science American 1940 314 quotes

Pioneer of OOP and GUI, Turing Award winner

Quotes by Alan Kay

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Xerox PARC Internal Memo 1971

Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.

Turing Award Lecture 1984

The computer revolution hasn't happened yet.

Interview with Computerworld 2007

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Keynote at OOPSLA 1989

If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.

Interview 1990

The Dynabook is a personal computer for children of all ages.

A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages (paper) 1972

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.

Keynote at OOPSLA 1991

The user interface is the system.

Turing Award Lecture 1984

Point of view is worth 80 IQ points.

Keynote at OOPSLA 1989

The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be built.

Xerox PARC Internal Memo 1971

Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.

Interview 1990

The best way to predict the future is to implement it.

Xerox PARC Internal Memo 1971

Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born.

Interview 1980

The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its capacity to simulate.

Turing Award Lecture 1984

Doing with images makes the world more understandable.

A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages (paper) 1972

The greatest danger in the computer world is not that computers will get too smart, but that we will get too dumb.

Interview 1990

It's easier to invent the future than to predict it.

Xerox PARC Internal Memo 1971

The real revolution is not in the machines, but in the way we think about them.

Turing Award Lecture 1984

The computer is a medium, not a tool.

Turing Award Lecture 1984

The future of computing is not about bigger, faster machines, but about more intimate, personal ones.

A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages (paper) 1972