Electric

Famous quotes containing the word electric:

    “It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
    —Sydney Smith (1771–1845)

    “That’s the down-town frieze,
    Principally the church steeple,
    A black line beside a white line;
    And the stack of the electric plant,
    A black line drawn on flat air.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self- employment and artistic autonomy.”
    —Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)