Jay Friedenberg is professor of psychology and chair of the Psychology Department at Manhattan College, where he founded and directs the Cognitive Science Program. His research interests are in vision (symmetry detection, center of mass estimation, and art perception) and has written books on cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and non-linear dynamics. Though plenty of scientists/inventors have been aphorists, there are not a lot of aphorisms about technology itself. Alfred North Whitehead’s

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can can perform without thinking of them

is one of the few sayings that directly addresses technology. “Moore’s law” (the number of transistors on a circuit doubles roughly every two years) doesn’t count, since that’s an axiom not an aphorism. Friedenberg’s sayings occupy a niche within that science-technology-aphorism gap, a place where psychology and biology rub shoulders—with surprising results…

Some people fall in love with themselves and then suffer a broken heart.

The mind is what the brain does.

Wine in, whine out.

Arrogance: being wrong in a loud voice.

The more complicated something is the greater the number of ways it can break down.

Buy what you need and you will never want. Buy what you want and you will forever be in need.