“The original question, ‘Can machines think?’ I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.”

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.

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

Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes hollow.

We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge.

These disturbing phenomena [Extra Sensory Perception] seem to deny all our scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming.

One day ladies will take their computers for walks in the park and tell each other, “My little computer said such a funny thing this morning”.

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.

A very large part of space-time must be investigated, if reliable results are to be obtained.

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

A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine.

No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain.

We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields.

Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.

No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I’m after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Programming is a skill best acquired by practice and example rather than from books.

Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.