“We haven't accepted — we can't really believe — that the most characteristic product of our age of scientific miracles is junk, but that is so.”

— Wendell Berry

"The Rise".
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: We haven't accepted — we can't really believe — that the most characteristic product of our age of scientific miracles is junk, but that is so. And we still think and behave as though we face an unspoiled continent, with thousands of acres of living space for every man. We still sing "America the Beautiful" as though we had not created in it, by strenuous effort, at great expense, and with dauntless self-praise, an unprecedented ugliness.

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Wendell Berry 189

author 1934

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“We haven't accepted — we can't really believe — that the most characteristic product of our age of scientific miracles is junk, but that is so. And we still think and behave as though we face an unspoiled continent, with thousands of acres of living space for every man. We still sing "America the Beautiful" as though we had not created in it, by strenuous effort, at great expense, and with dauntless self-praise, an unprecedented ugliness.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Rise"
The Long-Legged House (1969)

“By the end of next year, we really shall be on our way to that so-called economic miracle we need.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

In an Ministerial broadcast on the Budget (6 April 1976).
1970s

“Basically, to sum up: We're a generation of anarchists, and we just haven't gotten our hands on the means of production yet so we can fetter the wheels. We haven't been handed the controls yet except to the Internet, which is why it looks like it does.”

Mark Pesce (1962) American writer

An Afternoon with Mark Pesce: The Uncut Version http://hyperreal.org/~mpesce/interview.html

“I firmly believe we can make our own miracles if we believe strongly enough in ourselves and our mission on earth.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

“The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

"Four Romantic Words" in Words and Idioms : Studies in the English Language (1925), § VI
Context: The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best. The complete explanation of any fact is the very last step in human thought; and it is reached, as I have said, if indeed it is ever reached, by the preliminary processes of recognition, designation, and definition. It is with these preliminary processes that our aesthetic criticism is still occupied.