Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitat...ed, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always get back to the question, is it really necessary that men should consume so much of their bodily and mental energies in t...he machinery of civilised life? The world seems to me to do much of its toil for that which is not in any sense bread. Again, does not the latent feeling that much of their striving is to no purpose tend to infuse large quantities of sham into men's work?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial... vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature ...and the Whole,--re-attaching even artificial things, and violations of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight,--disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, w...hen a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You overfed the boy, Ma'am. You raised an artificial spirit in the lad, unbecoming to his station on life. This would never have h...appened if you kept him on gruel.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who have realized that this is a dream imagine that it is easy to wake up, and are angry with those who continue sleeping, ...not considering that the whole world that environs them does not permit them to wake. Life proceeds as a series of optical illusions, artificial needs and imaginary sensations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The differences between the youthful H.G. Wells and the mature Henry James were so basic and numerous that it seems almost miracul...ous that they ever knew each other well enough to have started a feud. James was fastidious and was preoccupied in many of his works with matters of taste and high society. Wells could be slovenly, considered James's taste artificial, and found any young scientist far more interesting than a room full of dukes and duchesses. James was an artist who seemed to feel the chief value of life was to give him subjects for his novels. Wells wanted to have a hand in reshaping life and constructing a new world, and considered his books merely useful tools toward these ends. James would agonize for hours over a single sentence, refining and refining it until sometimes only his most devoted readers cared to thread their way through the innumerable clauses he found necessary for communication of his exact meaning. Wells scoffed at such painstaking craftsmanship, and preferred to state his ideas so that even the slowest reader could follow him without difficulty. James was an artist, however tortured his sentences finally became. Wells was a propagandist, however skillfully he stated his sometimes complex ideas.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and su...bstance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders--to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all--to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Coming to terms with the rhythms of women's lives means coming to terms with life itself, accepting the imperatives of the body ra...ther than the imperatives of an artificial, man-made, perhaps transcendentally beautiful civilization. Emphasis on the male work-rhythm is an emphasis on infinite possibilities; emphasis on the female rhythms is an emphasis on a defined pattern, on limitation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »