Dennis Gabor Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

I do not know of anything in modern poetry as violently hostile to contemporary life as was the poetry of T. S. Eliot, which so perfectly fitted the mood of the young people between the two wars. I also find much more benevolence towards humanity in younger historians than there was in Spengler or in Toynbee. Still, it is not difficult to sense the disgust of the intellectuals at the new prosperous working class, 'with their eyes glued to the television screen,' who have become indifferent to radical ideas.

Dennis Gabor
Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.

Dennis Gabor
The most important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the reparation of the evils and damages by the technology of yesterday.

Dennis Gabor
Incomplete knowledge of the future, and also of the past of the transmitter from which the future might be constructed, is at the very basis of the concept of information. On the other hand, complete ignorance also precludes communication; a common language is required, that is to say an agreement between the transmitter and the receiver regarding the elements used in the communication process...
[The information of a message can] be defined as the 'minimum number of binary decisions which enable the receiver to construct the message, on the basis of the data already available to him.' These data comprise both the convention regarding the symbols and the language used, and the knowledge available at the moment when the message started.

Dennis Gabor
The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is.

Dennis Gabor
Science has never quite given man what he desired, not even in applied science. Man dreamt of wings; science gave him an easy chair which flies through the air.

Dennis Gabor
Short of a compulsory humanistic indoctrination of all scientists and engineers, with a "Hippocratic oath" of never using their brains to kill people, I believe that the best makeshift solution at present is to give the alpha-minuses alternative outlets for their dangerous brain-power, and this may well be provided by space research.

Dennis Gabor
The technique of birth control can be suppressed only if one abolishes also the technique of death control: medicine and hygiene.

Dennis Gabor