If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won...'t be able to believe the simplest true things.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Men found that his absorbing egotism was deadly to all other men. It resembled the torpedo, which inflicts a succession of shocks ...on any one who takes hold of it, producing spasms which contract the muscles of the hand, so that the man can not open his fingers; and the animal inflicts new and more violent shocks, until he paralyzes and kills his victim. So, this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him; and the universal cry of France, and of Europe, in 1814, was, "enough of him;" "assez de Bonaparte."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands;... The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Light Flashed from his matted head and marble feet,... He grappled at the net With the coiled, hurdling muscles of his thighs: The corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All of this, and the curious knee-cap,... fitted above the wrought greaves, and the sharp muscles of your back which the tunic could not cover.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the... spiritual athlete must crash through.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"One can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I alw...ays did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A machine is characterized by sustained, autonomous action. It is set up by human hands and then is more or less set loose from hu...man control. It is designed to come between man and nature, to affect the natural world without requiring or indeed allowing humans to come into contact with it. Such is the clock, which abstracts the measurement of time from the sun and the stars: such is the steam engine, which turns coal into power to move ships or pump water without the intervention of human muscles. A tool, unlike a machine, is not self-sufficient or autonomous in action. It requires the skill of a craftsman and, when handled with skill, permits him to reshape the world in his way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which, in replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts f...rom false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles. On this art of nature all our arts rely.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »