When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929), U.S. author. The Left Hand of Darkness, ch. 3 (1969).

Knowledge is power

Proverb 17^th c.

Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in.

Günther Grass (b. 1927), German author. Interview in New Statesman & Society (London, 22 June 1990).

Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major-perhaps the major-stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.

Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924), French philosopher. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Introduction (1979).

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian communications theorist. Playboy (Chicago, March 1969).

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

Ronald Reagan (b. 1911), U.S. Republican politician, president. Guardian (London, 14 June 1989).

The idea that information can be stored in a changing world without an overwhelming depreciation of its value is false. It is scarcely less false than the more plausible claim that after a war we may take our existing weapons, fill their barrels with cylinder oil, and coat their outsides with sprayed rubber film, and let them statically await the next emergency.

Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), U.S. mathematician, educator, founder of cybernetics. The Human Use of Human Beings, ch. 7 (1950).

Among all the world's races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.

John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908), U.S. economist. "The United States," in New York (15 Nov. 1971; repr. in A View from the Stands, 1986).

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don't even arise.

Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929), French semiologist. Cool Memories, ch. 5 (1987; tr. 1990).

Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Sir Robert Chiltern, in An Ideal Husband, act 1.

I only ask for information

Rosa Dartle (Dickens)

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I've information vegetable, animal and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,

From Marathon to Woterloo, in order catagorical..

Major-general stanley The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it

Samual Johnson

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English satirical poet. An Essay on Criticism. Pieria was the fabled birthplace of the muses.

I think it is best to put up with information the way you get it; and seem satisfied with it, and surprised at it, and grateful for it, and say, "My word!" and never let on.

Mark Twain - Following the Equator

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."

Herbert Simon

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."

Gertrude Stein

"We may ask for information, but we are usually only interseted in what confirms our opinions."

Hubbard, Albert

"Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge."

Daniel Boorstin