The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that partic...ular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters--there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void.... That's why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of the presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If our web be framed with rotten handles, when our loom is well nigh done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true pren...tices again, and let them be denizens.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods ...themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Machinery is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If you do not use the tools, they use you. All tools a...re in one sense edge-tools, and dangerous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hear...ts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we'll vote against.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause--one word!--whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseles...s toilings? Speak weaver!--stay thy hand!--but one single word with thee! Nay--the shuttle flies--the figures float forth from the loom; the freshet-rushing carpet forever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I remember when I was first assigned to jets. I said to the colonel, "Colonel, I joined this man's air force to fly an airplane. B...ut nobody's gonna hitch me to no Roman candle."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was in fact an old battle and hunting ground through which we had been floating, the ancient dwelling-place of a race of hunter...s and warriors.... Pawtucket and Wamesit, where the Indians, where the Indians resorted in the fishing season, are now Lowell, the city of spindles and Manchester of America, which sends its cotton cloth round the globe. Even we youthful voyagers had spent a part of our lives in the village of Chelmsford, when the present city, whose bells we heard, was its obscure north district only, and the giant weaver was not yet fairly born. So old are we; so young is it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »