The learned professors have been at considerable pains in their attempts to make a distinction between tools and implements on the... one hand, and machinery on the other. Nor have they arrived much of anywhere. The one is continually shading into the other. Here is an ordinary shovel used by a day labourer in a ditch; here is the same shovel with a somewhat thicker handle, containing a pneumatic attachment which is said to improve its digging power; here is a very much larger shovel with curved ends and steel teeth, hitched to an arm that is hitched to a steam engine, which can gobble up a cartload of dirt at one mouthful. Where does the tool stop and the machine begin? A grindstone is widely held to be a primitive tool; a turret lathe is widely held to be a machine. Both spin around. What is the essential difference? The employment of nonhuman power, steam, oil, gas, has been defined as the difference. Well and good. Then everything worked by human hands and legs is a tool only, and bicycles, typewriters, adding machines, sewing machines, foot lathes, clocks, hand-pumps--are not machines. Which is absurd. And what is one to do with treadmills for grinding corn, whose motive power is said by some to be the donkey, and by some the carrot in front of his nose?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us begin by clearing up the old confusion between the man who loves learning and the man who loves reading, and point out that... there is no connection whatever between the two. A learned man is a sedentary, concentrated solitary enthusiast, who searches through books to discover some particular grain of truth upon which he has set his heart. If the passion for reading conquers him, his gains dwindle and vanish between his fingers. A reader, on the other hand, must check the desire for learning at the outset; if knowledge sticks to him well and good, but to go in pursuit of it, to read on a system, to become a specialist or an authority, is very apt to kill what it suits us to consider the more humane passion for pure and disinterested reading.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I still feel just as I told you, that I shall come safely out of this war. I felt so the other day when danger was near. I certain...ly enjoyed the excitement of fighting our way out of Giles to the Narrows as much as any excitement I ever experienced. I had a good deal of anxiety the first hour or two on account of my command, but not a particle on my own account. After that, and after I saw that we were getting on well, it was really jolly. We all joked and laughed and cheered constantly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let all our dealings with the redman be characterized by justice and good faith, and let there be the most liberal provision for h...is physical wants, for education in its widest sense, and for religious instruction and training. To do this will cost money, but like all money well expended, it is a wise economy.... If by reason of the intrigues of the whites or from any cause Indian wars come, then let us correct the errors of the past. Always the numbers and the prowess of the Indians have been underrated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sam Spade: You, eh, you aren't exactly the sort of a person you pretend to be, are you? Brigid O'Shaughnessy: Why, I'm not su...re I know exactly what you mean. Spade: The schoolgirl manner. You know, blushing, stammering, and all that. Brigid: I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad. Worse than you can know. Spade: Yeah, well that's good. Because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere. Brigid: I won't be innocent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ulysses is son to Laertes, but he is father to Telemachus, husband to Penelope, lover of Calypso, companion in arms of the Greek w...arriors around Troy, and King of Ithaca. He was subjected to many trials, but with wisdom and courage came through them all.... he is a complete man as well, a good man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Writing, when properly managed ... is but a different name for conversation: As no one ... would venture to talk all;Mso no author..., who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding, is to ... leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had thought to observe on this carry when we crossed the dividing line between the Penobscot and St. John, but as my feet had ha...rdly been out of water the whole distance, and it was all level and stagnant, I began to despair of finding it. I remembered hearing a good deal about the "highlands" dividing the waters of the Penobscot from those of the St. John, as well as the St. Lawrence, at the time of the northeast boundary dispute.... I thought that if the commissioners themselves, and the King of Holland with them, had spent a few days here, with their packs upon their backs, looking for that "highland," they would have had an interesting time, and perhaps it would have modified their views of the question somewhat. The King of Holland would have been in his element.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All rejection and negation indicates a deficiency in fertility: fundamentally, if only we were good plowland we would allow nothin...g to go unused, and in every thing, event, and person we would welcome manure, rain, or sunshine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. And the end of culture is not to destroy this, God forbid! but to train a...way all impediment and mixture and leave nothing but pure power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »