Machinery Quotes - Page 16

• I admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true.

  Charles Dickens

  Inspirational, Men, Brave

  Charles Dickens (1868). “Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round"”, p.135

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• Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophical, Ignorance, Science

  "Counsels and Maxims". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer (Volume 2 "On Various Subjects"), 1851, as translated by R. J. Hollingdale in "Essays and Aphorisms", 1970.

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• The machine is impersonal, it takes the pride away from a piece of work, the individual merits and defects that go along with allwork that is not done by a machine--which is to say, its little bit of humanity.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Work, Pride, Humanity

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• To see distinctly the machinery--the wheels and pinions--of any work of Art is, unquestionably, of itself, a pleasure, but one which we are able to enjoy only just in proportion as we do not enjoy the legitimate effect designed by the artist.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Art, Wheels, Able

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.2118, Delphi Classics

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• Corporations can deduct their planes, all their office expenses, their machinery, their computers and Teleprompters and whatever else they have. They can deduct their yachts, they can deduct their limousines, their planes, everything.

  Malachy McCourt

  Office, Corporations, Computer

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Borna virus is not a retrovirus. It doesn't actually insert its own genes into our cells. What it does is just hangs out near our DNA and uses some of the molecular machinery to copy itself.

  Carl Zimmer

  Dna, Cells, Viruses

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Magic [has] been replaced by machinery.

  Shilo Shiv Suleman

  Motivation, Inspiration, Technology

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• I am not fighting machinery as such, but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of the human race, but for all. I will not have the enrichment of a few at the expense of the community. At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of this minority is not humanity or love of their kind, but greed and avarice.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Fighting, Men, Thinking

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• I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Government, Two

  Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824.

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• People once considered that religions were obsolete and that material science would solve all human problems. Then they have become disillusioned with materialism and machinery and have realized that spiritual sciences are also indispensable for human welfare.

  Dalai Lama

  Spiritual, People, Problem

  Interview with Robert Thurman, www.motherjones.com. November/December 1997.

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• It is about a period in aviation which is now gone, but which was probably more interesting than any the future will bring. As time passes, the perfection of machinery tends to insulate man from contact with the elements in which he lives. The 'stratosphere' planes of the future will cross the ocean without any sense of the water below. Like a train tunneling through a mountain, they will be aloof from both the problems and the beauty of the earth's surface.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Ocean, Men, Water

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• The spinning wheel is itself an exquisite piece of machinery. My head daily bows in reverence to its unknown inventor.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Pieces, Spinning, Bows

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “Collected Works”

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• Labour, because it chose to remain unintelligent, either became subservient, or insolently believed in damaging the capitalists' goods and machinery or even in killing the capitalists.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Killing, Goods, Capitalist

  Mahatma Gandhi (1983). “Collected Works”

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• Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Hurt, Men, Mad

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. “The Selected Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.”, Library of Alexandria

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• The merry-go-round was running, yes, but... It was running backward. The small calliope inside the carousel machinery rattle-snapped its nervous-stallion shivering drums, clashed its harvest-moon cymbals, toothed its castanets, and throatily choked and sobbed its reeds, whistles, and baroque flutes.

  Ray Bradbury

  Running, Moon, Cymbals

  Ray Bradbury (1962). “Something wicked this way comes: a novel”, Bantam

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• Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They're beautiful―God, how beautiful they are! They're like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They're as graceful as any bird. They're as mysterious as any animal on earth. No one knows for sure how long they live or what impulses―except for hunger―they respond to. There are more than two hundred and fifty species of shark, and everyone is different from every other one.

  Peter Benchley

  Beautiful, Dream, Animal

  Peter Benchley (2012). “Jaws”, p.104, Fawcett

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• Memory whispers someplace in that jumbled machinery.

  Ken Kesey

  Memories

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.8, Hamilton Books

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• So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Knights, People, Spit

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.60, Macmillan

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• In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings--artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers--to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption.

  Tom Robbins

  Men, Artist, Order

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, p.215, Bantam

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• Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!

  Henry Miller

  Men, Humanity, Principles

  Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

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• What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and-let’s be frank—fun, fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life’s efforts bring you. The mystery is all.

  Lorrie Moore

  Fun, Lying, Discovery

  Lorrie Moore (2010). “The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore”, p.259, Faber & Faber

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• My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Monkeys, Way, Unpredictable

  Dashiell Hammett (2010). “The Maltese Falcon”, p.95, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• I think I should not go far wrong if I asserted that the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Technology, Thinking, Saving

  "Good Work". Book by E.F. Schumacher, p. 25, 1985.

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• In no way am I demeaning writing or any other form of art because it's popular. What I'm saying is that anything fed into the industrial machinery to comply with rules of size and length and shelf-life has a hard time surviving as art.

  Alberto Manguel

  Art, Writing, Hard Times

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• The republic which sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to politicians and statesmen, for the safety of its liberties, never will have any.

  Wendell Phillips

  Sleep, Safety, Democracy

  Wendell Phillips (1902). “Selections from the works of Wendell Phillips”

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