Alan Turing

Mathematics English 1912 – 1954 391 quotes

Father of computer science and artificial intelligence

Quotes by Alan Turing

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

Lecture to the London Mathematical Society 1947

A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

Computing Machinery and Intelligence 1950

Can machines think?

Computing Machinery and Intelligence 1950

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

On Computable Numbers 1936

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

Attributed remark

Those who can imagine anything, can create the impossible.

Attributed saying

Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

Attributed aphorism

I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have had little success in converting people to Christianity in the past, and today they are quite hopeless.

Letter to a friend 1951

The whole point of a computer is that it can do things faster than we can do them ourselves.

Lecture 1947

If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.

Computing Machinery and Intelligence 1950

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

Radio interview 1951

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.

Computing Machinery and Intelligence 1950

No engineer can make a machine to take the place of a man.

Attributed remark

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity.

Lecture 1947

The Enigma machine was a very clever device.

Attributed professional observation

I want to do something really worthwhile.

Letter to family 1930

It is rather a shock to find that the laws of nature are written in this peculiar language of the mathematician.

Attributed reflection

One of the main functions of a computer is to do what you can't do easily yourself.

Interview 1950

The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working as soon as we are born and continues working until the moment we stand up to make a speech.

Attributed joke

There is no reason why an extra-logical picture of the world need not be true.

On Computable Numbers 1936