Esther Dyson Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it's the system — there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it's a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

Esther Dyson
Change means that what was before wasn't perfect. People want things to be better.

Esther Dyson
The important thing to remember is that this is not a new form of life. It is just a new activity.

Esther Dyson
Everybody should have a real failure, ideally when they are pretty young, that gives them a sense of confidence. I think that was one of Steve Jobs's problems. He was successful for way too long before it finally hit him. There's nothing to build confidence like real achievement, but also like real failure.

Esther Dyson
Having seen a non-market economy, I suddenly understood much better what I liked about a market economy.... Number one, that it works. Number two, that it's moral. Not always, and not everybody in it is moral, but the system is, I think, a moral one.

Esther Dyson
From the business point of view — not to overstate it — intellectual property is dead; long live intellectual process. Long live service; long live performance.

Esther Dyson
I've seen disgusting excess in business, and I've seen disgusting excess in Washington. But at the same time, I've certainly learned that Washington matters and that you can't ignore it, especially when you get into telecom.

Esther Dyson
I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works — I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

Esther Dyson
The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.

Esther Dyson
Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers' rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody — government stay away.

Esther Dyson
If a woman shows up in a fur coat, I just assume she's a crook. And that's me, the nice American. The assumption that you can't make money honestly is a killer.

Esther Dyson
I think that the use of copyright is going to change dramatically. Part of it is economics. There is just going to be so much content out there — there's a scarcity of attention. Information consumes attention, and there's too much information.

Esther Dyson
Genuine achievement gives you a sense that you can do stuff. And genuine failure gives you a sense that you can survive being imperfect.

Esther Dyson
There's almost no way of doing importing honestly, because if you do you're at such a disadvantage competitively. So people spend huge amounts of effort getting around stupid laws and not paying taxes.

Esther Dyson
You don't get rewarded precisely for your effort, but in Russia you got rewarded for being alive, but not very well rewarded. A worker's paradise is a consumer's hell. People were beaten down. Everybody drank too much. Everything was hostile and dysfunctional. It was a good education about why the U.S. was a better place.

Esther Dyson
Part of the problem is when we bring in a new technology we expect it to be perfect in a way that we don't expect the world that we're familiar with to be perfect.

Esther Dyson
I think I have the right to know what Steve Forbes paid in taxes — I don't think there should be a law. I think there should be a presumption. I wouldn't vote for a guy who wouldn't reveal what he paid in taxes. That kind of thing.

Esther Dyson
I'd rather be a gardener than in construction. I'd rather go out and water the plants and clear the path for the sun to shine and have them grow themselves. You can grow a lot more plants than you can ever build individual things. The plants do their own work. You just help them.

Esther Dyson
No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it.

Esther Dyson