"The robot children said, “Sure, Grandfather,” and went away laughing behind his back. They were smooth and sharp and bright, and they thought that they were the only ones who had ever been modern, and it never occurred to them that others had been so before them and that others would be so after them. And if they had been told that someday they would be put back on the shelf with other pieces of discarded merchandise they would have laughed all the harder. That is the way of young robots and no amount of programming seems able to change it."
Robert Sheckley

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Sources

Chapter 8 (p. 33)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Sheckley