How can anyone be interested in war?--that glorious pursuit of annihilation with its ceremonious bellowings and trumpetings over t...he mangling of human bones and muscles and organs and eyes, its inconceivable agonies which could have been prevented by a few well- chosen, reasonable words. How, why, did this unnecessary business begin? Why does anyone want to read about it--this redundant human madness which men accept as inevitable?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become "naturally numb" as they swelled and stre...tched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into "manageable discomfort." This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.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 »
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 »
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 »
The bone-frame was made for no such shock knit within terror,... yet the skeleton stood up to it: the flesh? it was melted away, the heart burnt out, dead ember, tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered....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 »
There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean "the fooli...sh face of praise," the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.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 »