...the promise of automation seemed to exert a magnetic force, a seduction that promised to fulfill a dream of perfect control and... heal egos wounded by their needs for certainty. The dream contains the image of "people serving a smart machine," but in the shadow of the dream, human beings have lost the experience of critical judgment that would allow them to no longer simply respond but to know better than, to question, to say no.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Stupid or smart, there wasn't much choice about what was going to happen to me ... Growing up was like falling into a hole.... I m...ight not quit school, not while Mama had any say in the matter, but what difference would that make? What was I going to do in five years? Work in the textile mill? Join Mama at the diner? It all looked bleak to me. No wonder people got crazy as they grew up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn which mock'd the smart,... Through Europe to the Aetolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart? That thousands counted every groan, And Europe made his woe her own?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are several natural phenomena which I shall have to have explained to me before I can keep on going as a resident member of ...the human race. One is the metamorphosis which hats and suits undergo exactly one week after their purchase, whereby they are changed from smart, intensely becoming articles of apparel into something children use when they want to "dress up like daddy."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The knocking out of a pipe can be made almost as important as the smoking of it, especially if there are nervous people in the roo...m. A good, smart knock of a pipe against a tin wastebasket and you will have a neurasthenic out of his chair and into the window sash in no time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Jefferson Smith: If you thought as much as being honest as you do of being smart ... Diz: Honest? Why, we're the only ones wh...o can afford to be honest in what we tell the voters. We don't have to be re-elected like politicians.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mr. [Christopher] Smart the poet was here yesterday.... This ingenious writer is one of the most unfortunate of men--he has been t...wice confined in a mad house.... How great a pity so clever, so ingenious a man should be reduced to such shocking circumstances. He is extremely grave, and has still great wildness in his manner, looks and voice--'tis impossible to see him and to think of his works, without feeling the utmost pity and concern for him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of all the girls that are so smart There's none like pretty Sally;... She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »