Tim Berners-Lee Quotes & Sayings

IT professionals have a responsibility to understand the use of standards and the importance of making Web applications that work with any kind of device. — Tim Berners-Lee

The story of the growth of the World Wide Web can be measured by the number of Web pages that are published and the number of links between pages. The Web's ability to allow people to forge links is why we refer to it as an abstract information space, rather than simply a network. — Tim Berners-Lee

The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine. — Tim Berners-Lee

I think in general it's clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings, and the Web's a form of communications, so it generally should be good. — Tim Berners-Lee

I don't believe in the sort of "Eureka!" moment idea. I think it's a myth. I'm very suspicious that actually Archimedes had been thinking about that problem for a long time. — Tim Berners-Lee

We need diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges. — Tim Berners-Lee

When something is such a creative medium as the web, the limits to it are our imagination. — Tim Berners-Lee

People keep asking me what I think of it now that it's done. Hence my protest: The Web is not done! — Tim Berners-Lee

The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. — Tim Berners-Lee

[The internet] ought to be like clay, rather than a sculpture that you observe from a distance. — Tim Berners-Lee

I had argued that it was ridiculous for a person to have two separate interfaces, one for local information (the desktop of their own computer) and one for remote information (a browser to reach other computers). Why did we need an entire desktop for our own computer but get only a window through which to view the entire rest of the planet? Why, for that matter, should we have folders on our desktop but not on the web? — Tim Berners-Lee

It's possible to live without the Web. It's not possible to live without water. But if you've got water, then the difference between somebody who is connected to the Web and is part of the information society, and someone who (is not) is growing bigger and bigger. — Tim Berners-Lee

Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet. And now, is the basis of the society built on the internet. — Tim Berners-Lee

One way to think about the magnitude of the changes to come is to think about how you went about your business before powerful Web search engines. You probably wouldn't have imagined that a world of answers would be available to you in under a second. The next set of advances will have an different effect, but similar in magnitude. — Tim Berners-Lee

Cool URIs don't change — Tim Berners-Lee

If different cultures connect with each other, they are less likely to want to shoot each other. — Tim Berners-Lee

What was often difficult for people to understand about the design was that there was nothing else beyond URLs, HTTP and HTML. There was no central computer "controlling" the Web, no single network on which these protocols worked, not even organisation anywhere that "ran" the Web. The Web was not a physical "thing" that existed in a certain "place". It was a "space" in which information could exist. — Tim Berners-Lee

Most larger companies now see that for the market to grow, Web infrastructure must be royalty-free. — Tim Berners-Lee

E-mail is interesting. We can't live with it, and you can't live without it. — Tim Berners-Lee

The nice thing about programming at the RDF level is that you can just say, I'll ask for all the books. You can ask for all the shelves. You can ask for a given shelf whether a book was on it. And you're not worrying so much about the underlying syntax. — Tim Berners-Lee

I think when you have a lot of jumbled up ideas they come together slowly over a period of several years. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Google algorithm was a significant development. I've had thank-you emails from people whose lives have been saved by information on a medical website or who have found the love of their life on a dating website. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Web took off in all its glory because it was a royalty-free infrastructure ... When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going to end in the U.S.A. If we had a situation in which the U.S. had serious flaws in its Net Neutrality, and Europe did have Net Neutrality, and I were trying to start a company, then I would be very tempted to move. — Tim Berners-Lee

The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information. — Tim Berners-Lee

It was really hard explaining the Web before people just got used to it because they didn't even have words like click and jump and page. — Tim Berners-Lee

Most of systems still depended on some central node to which everything had to be connected [ ... ]. I wanted the act of adding a link to be trivial. If i was, then a web of links could spread evenly across the globe. — Tim Berners-Lee

Customers need to be given control of their own data-not being tied into a certain manufacturer so that when there are problems they are always obliged to go back to them. — Tim Berners-Lee

We shouldn't build a technology to colour, or grey out, what people say. The media in general is balanced, although there are a lot of issues to be addressed that the media rightly pick up on. — Tim Berners-Lee

As more and more people awaken to the threats against our basic rights online, we must start a debate - everywhere - about the web we want. — Tim Berners-Lee

There are converging web-related issues cropping up, like privacy and security, that we currently have no way of thinking about. Nobody has thought to look at how people and the web combine as a whole - until now. — Tim Berners-Lee

Anyone who slaps a "this page is best viewed with Browser X" label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network. — Tim Berners-Lee

Any enterprise CEO really ought to be able to ask a question that involves connecting data across the organization, be able to run a company effectively, and especially to be able to respond to unexpected events. Most organizations are missing this ability to connect all the data together. — Tim Berners-Lee

Whatever the device you use for getting your information out, it should be the same information. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Semantic Web isn't inherently complex. The Semantic Web language, at its heart, is very, very simple. It's just about the relationships between things. — Tim Berners-Lee

It's interesting that people throughout the existence of the web have been concerned about monopolies. — Tim Berners-Lee

It's the whole cat and mouse game between the readers and writers that makes the web work. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Web is now philosophical engineering. Physics and the Web are both about the relationship between the small and the large. — Tim Berners-Lee

Everybody who runs a Web site knows we're not assured of compatibility, and we could end up with a split. — Tim Berners-Lee

Any good software engineer will tell you that a compiler and an interpreter are interchangeable. — Tim Berners-Lee

It is the the duty of a Webmaster to allocate URIs which you will be able to stand by in 2 years, in 20 years, in 200 years. — Tim Berners-Lee

The internet explodes when somebody has the creativity to look at a piece of data that's put there for one reason and realise they can connect it with something else. — Tim Berners-Lee

If you are not on the web, you will have problems accessing services. — Tim Berners-Lee

E-mail allowed messages to be sent from one person to another, but did not form a space in which information could permanently exists and be referred to. — Tim Berners-Lee

Universality has been the key enabler of innovation on the Web and will continue to be so in the future. — Tim Berners-Lee

Legend has it that every new technology is first used for something related to sex or pornography. That seems to be the way of humankind. — Tim Berners-Lee

I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that's not going to get to my insurance company and I'm going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they've figured I'm looking at those books. — Tim Berners-Lee

The challenge is to manage the Web in an open way-not too much bureaucracy, not subject to political or commercial pressures. The U.S. should demonstrate that it is prepared to share control with the world. — Tim Berners-Lee

In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of other words. I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it's related to, and how it's related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything. There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected. — Tim Berners-Lee

What I do has to be a function of what I can do, not a function of what people ask me to do. — Tim Berners-Lee

The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing. — Tim Berners-Lee

I think a lot of great software has been written by people who are scratching a short-term itch, something which has been niggling them for ages, but in the back of their mind they've got a wonderful long-term plan. — Tim Berners-Lee

Acceptance is the spiritual hammock. — Tim Berners-Lee

One of the things I like about the computer that I use is that I can write a program on it or I can download a program on to it and run it. That's kind of important to me, and that's also kind of important to the whole future of the internet ... obviously a closed platform is a serious brake on innovation. — Tim Berners-Lee

I'm very aware there are lots of other people who are just bright and working just as hard, with just the same dedication to make the world a good place. — Tim Berners-Lee

The world's urban poor and the illiterate are going to be increasingly disadvantaged and are in danger of being left behind. The web has added a new dimension to the gap between the first world and the developing world. We have to start talking about a human right to connect. — Tim Berners-Lee

WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project — Tim Berners-Lee

On the web the thinking of cults can spread very rapidly and suddenly a cult which was 12 people who had some deep personal issues suddenly find a formula which is very believable. — Tim Berners-Lee

We could say we want the Web to reflect a vision of the world where everything is done democratically. To do that, we get computers to talk with each other in such a way as to promote that ideal. — Tim Berners-Lee

Web applications will become more and more ubiquitous throughout our human environment, with walls, automobile dashboards, refrigerator doors all serving as displays giving us a window onto the Web. — Tim Berners-Lee

When it comes to professionalism, it makes sense to talk about being professional in IT. Standards are vital so that IT professionals can provide systems that last. — Tim Berners-Lee

We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. — Tim Berners-Lee

AI is not just heading for our industry, it will radically change the machinery we use in marketing. — Tim Berners-Lee

I should be able to pick which applications I use for managing my life, I should be able to pick which content I look at, and I should be able to pick which device I use, which company I use for supplying my internet, and I'd like those to be independent choices. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past. — Tim Berners-Lee

What is a Web year now, about three months? And when people can browse around, discover new things, and download them fast, when we all have agents - then Web years could slip by before human beings can notice. — Tim Berners-Lee

The Mobile Web Initiative is important - information must be made seamlessly available on any device. — Tim Berners-Lee

That idea of URL was the basic clue to the universality of the Web. That was the only thing I insisted upon. — Tim Berners-Lee

There was a time when people felt the internet was another world, but now people realise it's a tool that we use in this world. — Tim Berners-Lee

The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our web-like existence in the world . We clump into family , association, and companies. — Tim Berners-Lee

Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch. — Tim Berners-Lee

Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make. — Tim Berners-Lee

Imagine that everything you are typing is being read by the person you are applying to for your first job. Imagine that it's all going to be seen by your parents and your grandparents and your grandchildren as well. — Tim Berners-Lee

I would have to create a system with common rules that would be acceptable to everyone. That meant as close as possible to no rules at all. — Tim Berners-Lee

In many ways, people growing up with the Web and now the Semantic Web take the power at their fingertips for granted. — Tim Berners-Lee

What we believe, endorse, agree with, and depend on is representable and, increasingly, represented on the Web. We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is the sort we intend. — Tim Berners-Lee

What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web ... Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring. — Tim Berners-Lee

I have built a moat around myself, along with ways over that moat so that people can ask questions. — Tim Berners-Lee

I'm not a fan of giving a website a simple number like an IQ rating because like people they can vary in all kinds of different ways. So I'd be interested in different organisations labelling websites in different ways. — Tim Berners-Lee

You can't propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it. — Tim Berners-Lee

When you go onto the internet, if you really rummage around randomly then how do you hope to find something of any of value? — Tim Berners-Lee

It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I'm getting in return. — Tim Berners-Lee

Physicists analyze systems. Web scientists, however, can create the systems. — Tim Berners-Lee

When you understand things, there's no more magic, — Tim Berners-Lee

I don't mind being, in the public context, referred to as the inventor of the World Wide Web. What I like is that image to be separate from private life, because celebrity damages private life. — Tim Berners-Lee

I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the water company supplies water to my house. It supplies connectivity with no strings attached. — Tim Berners-Lee

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect, — Tim Berners-Lee

When I invented the web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA. — Tim Berners-Lee

I suppose it's amazing when you think how many things people get involved in that don't work. — Tim Berners-Lee

I basically wrote the code and the specs and documentation for how the client and server talked to each other. — Tim Berners-Lee

I found myself answering the same questions asked frequently of me by different people. It would be so much easier if everyone could just read my database. — Tim Berners-Lee

It's amazing how quickly people on the internet can pick something up, but it's also amazing how quickly they can drop it. — Tim Berners-Lee

Software companies should take more responsibility for security holes, especially in browsers and e-mail clients. There are some straightforward things the industry should be doing right now to fix things, and I don't know why they haven't been done yet. — Tim Berners-Lee

I think IT projects are about supporting social systems - about communications between people and machines. They tend to fail due to cultural issues. — Tim Berners-Lee

A hacker to me is someone creative who does wonderful things. — Tim Berners-Lee

If you use the original World Wide Web program, you never see a URL or have to deal with HTML. That was a surprise to me - that people were prepared to painstakingly write HTML. — Tim Berners-Lee

The people who designed the tools that make the Net run had their own ideas for the future. — Tim Berners-Lee

I hope we will use the Net to cross barriers and connect cultures. — Tim Berners-Lee

My own personal preference is that the consumer, the individual person should be protected because individual people and the difference between individual people and the diversity we have between people on the planet is so important. — Tim Berners-Lee

Now, if someone tries to monopolize the Web, for example pushes proprietary variations on network protocols, then that would make me unhappy. — Tim Berners-Lee