Professor Fumble Invents

Famous quotes containing the words professor, fumble and/or invents:

    This unlettered man’s speaking and writing are standard English. Some words and phrases deemed vulgarisms and Americanisms before, he has made standard American; such as “It will pay.” It suggests that the one great rule of composition—and if I were a professor of rhetoric I should insist on this—is, to speak the truth. This first, this second, this third; pebbles in your mouth or not. This demands earnestness and manhood chiefly.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “It’s hard to tell you how I managed it.
    When I saw the shaft had me by the coat,
    I didn’t try too long to pull away,
    Or fumble for my knife to cut away,
    I just embraced the shaft and rode it out....”
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.... Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.
    Jean Arp (1887–1948)