Ted Nelson

Computer Science American 1937 100 quotes

Information technologist who coined the terms 'hypertext' and 'hypermedia' and envisioned project Xanadu.

Quotes by Ted Nelson

The computer should be a tool for discovery, not just a tool for retrieval.

Various interviews and writings

The problem with most digital systems is that they are designed to be disposable.

Various interviews and writings

The future of computing is about making the invisible visible.

Various interviews and writings

The computer should be a tool for empowerment, not just a tool for efficiency.

Various interviews and writings

The web is a prison for content, not a liberation.

Various interviews and writings

The computer should be a tool for understanding, not just a tool for processing.

Various interviews and writings

The future of computing is about creating new ways of thinking.

Various interviews and writings

The web is a giant, unorganized library with no librarian.

Various interviews and writings

The computer should be a tool for connection, not just a tool for isolation.

Various interviews and writings

The problem with most digital systems is that they are designed to be closed, not open.

Various interviews and writings

Hypertext is the world's most powerful technology for thinking.

Literary Machines 1965

The Web is a wonderful tool, but it is not hypertext.

Interview 1999

Transclusion is the key to true hypermedia.

Literary Machines 1981

Computers are to thinking as bicycles are to walking.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines 1974

I don't believe in the future of computing; I believe in its present.

Speech 1987

The Xerox PARC people are the real heroes of personal computing.

Interview 1995

Hypertext undoes the linear tyranny of the book.

A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate 1965

We must design systems that allow for the messiness of human thought.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines 1974

Xanadu was my dream of a world where all information is connected without loss.

Literary Machines 1987

The internet is a leaky abstraction of what hypertext should be.

Blog Post 2004