“A reading-machine, always wound up and going,
He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.”

—  James Russell Lowell, A Fable for Critics

Prologue, st. 7
A Fable for Critics (1848)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A reading-machine, always wound up and going, He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing." by James Russell Lowell?
James Russell Lowell photo
James Russell Lowell175
American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat 1819–1891

Related quotes

David Gerrold photo

“Not that he was jealous of the machine—but it was reassuring to know that there was still something that human beings could do that machines could not master.
Love.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 32 (p. 189)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

Larry Niven photo

“A machine has no mind to read; you never know when it’s going to betray you”

Larry Niven book World of Ptavvs

Source: World of Ptavvs (1966), p. 6

Bill Hybels photo

“You're a leader. It's your job to keep your passion hot. Do whatever you have to do, read whatever you have to read, go wherever you have to go to stay fired up. And don't apologize to anybody.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Source: Courageous Leadership

Brandon Mull photo

“Most people worth knowing enjoy reading.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague

Richard K. Morgan photo

“Whatever. If Carnegie wakes up not knowing, he might make some private inquiries, but he ain’t going to be in too much of a hurry to let the police department in on it. And if he wakes up knowing—” He spread his hands. “—he’ll make less noise than a Catholic orgasm.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 37 (p. 439)

“You must master the vices. You know that if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing well. If, however, a thing is not worth doing then it's worth doing fabulously, amazingly, with grace, style and panache.”

Isla Dewar (1946–2021) Scottish novelist who died in 2021

Women Talking Dirty

“He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.”

Nathanael West book Miss Lonelyhearts

Source: Miss Lonelyhearts

Ernest Flagg photo

“A master in art need not go into the highways and byways for affects; he knows the straight course and follows it.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

Vera Brittain photo

“I know one husband and wife who, whatever the official reasons given to the court for the break up of their marriage, were really divorced because the husband believed that nobody ought to read while he was talking and the wife that nobody ought to talk while she was reading.”

Vera Brittain (1893–1970) English writer

Quoted in Jilly Cooper and Tom Hartman, Violets and Vinegar, "The Battle Done," (1980)

Robert Maynard Hutchins photo

“So Bertrand Russell once said to me that the pupil in school should study whatever he liked. I asked whether this was not a crime against the pupil. … Should he be allowed to grow up without knowing Shakespeare? … Lord Russell replied that he would require a boy to read one play of Shakespeare; if he did not like it, he should not be compelled to read any more.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Related topics