Alan Kay

Computer Science American 1940 314 quotes

Pioneer of OOP and GUI, Turing Award winner

Quotes by Alan Kay

The computer is a new kind of medium for expression.

Various lectures

The computer is a new kind of medium for communication.

Various lectures

The computer is a new kind of medium for learning.

Various lectures

The computer is a new kind of medium for play.

Various lectures

The computer is a new kind of medium for living.

Various lectures

The computer is a new kind of medium for being.

Various lectures

The most important thing in a programming language is that it be simple enough for a human to understand.

Various interviews and talks

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

Various interviews and talks

The greatest danger in the computer world is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

Various interviews and talks

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Various interviews and talks

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

Various interviews and talks

If you want to make a computer that is truly personal, it has to be able to learn about you.

Various interviews and talks

The Dynabook was a vision of a personal computer for children, a powerful tool for learning and creativity.

Various interviews and talks

The future is not what it used to be.

Various interviews and talks

The only thing that is constant is change.

Various interviews and talks

The real revolution is not in the technology, but in the way we think about it.

Various interviews and talks

The computer is the most important invention of the 20th century.

Various interviews and talks

The future is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed.

Various interviews and talks

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Often attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but Kay has used it in context of motivation.

The only thing worse than a bad idea is no idea.

Various interviews and talks