Obsolescence Quotes

“The people who think of themselves as White have the choice of becoming human or irrelevant.

Or--as they are, indeed, already, in all but actual fact: obsolete. For, if trouble don't last always, as the Preacher tells us, neither does Power, and it is on the fact or the hope or the myth of Power that that identity which calls itself White has always seemed to depend.”
― James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

“Why do things get weaker and worse? Why don't they get better? Because we accept that they fall apart! But they don't have to --- they could last forever. Why do things get more expensive? Any fool can see that they should get cheaper as technology gets more efficient. It's despair to accept the senility of obsolescence...”
― Paul Theroux, The Mosquito Coast

“Look― shoot all you want. With a camera you can barely capture a soul at a time. With planned obsolescence, you can terminate everyone's future at once and they'll never know what hit them.”
― Pansy Schneider-Horst

“Be persistent, be persistent, they say. But please, do not mistake being a pest for being persistent.”
― Nike Thaddeus

“The frequent use of any word in this manner brings it insensibly to have all the effect of the proper term whose place it was intended to supply: no sooner is this effect produced by it, than the same principle that influenced us at first to employ it operates with equal strength in influencing us to lay it aside, and in its stead to adopt something newer and still more remote.”
― George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric

“A typical tech toy. High-end this year, everywhere next year, nowhere after that until the antiquarians revival.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Cet empire du jetable finit par toucher l'homme lui-même, dont on peut se demander si, au terme du processus, il n'est pas devenu obsolète à son tour.”
― Serge Latouche, Usa e getta. Le follie dell'obsolescenza programmata

“The world is moving so fast, that we have few true experts on tomorrow. All we have are experts on yesterday.”
― Gyan Nagpal, The Future Ready Organization: How Dynamic Capability Management Is Reshaping the Modern Workplace

“With the present violent historical acceleration - each new generation of knowledge occurs every ten years - the day is close when everything I know will be completely obsolete (for all the good it did me!) and I will still be alive.”
― Edmundo Desnoes, Memories of Underdevelopment