“We were also misled by M. Michelin's use of the word "impracticable". "Impracticable," we argued with a careful exercise in semantics, leaves just a chance. More than that. As we thought about it, it seemed to give a broad hint that the road was passable to the young and the determined in sturdy motor cars. "Impracticable" — scratched paintwork, discomfort, difficult finding petrol stations, shortage of good restaurants — these it seemed were the sort of hazards the urbane Michelin was trying to convey to us. Alas, he was not.”

— John Pearson (author)

Gone to Timbuctoo (1961), Ch. 9

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 "We were also misled by M. Michelin's use of the word "impracticable". "Impracticable," we argued with a careful exercis…" by John Pearson (author)?

John Pearson (author) photo

John Pearson (author) 2

author 1930

Related quotes

“The Utopian schemes of levelling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

"House of Representatives of Massachusetts to Dennys De Berdt http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s6.html, January 12th, 1768 
Context: Property is admitted to have an existence, even in the savage state of nature. The bow, the arrow, and the tomahawk; the hunting and the fishing ground, are species of property, as important to an American savage, as pearls, rubies, and diamonds are to the Mogul, or a Nabob in the East, or the lands, tenements, hereditaments, messuages, gold and silver of the Europeans. And if property is necessary for the support of savage life, it is by no means less so in civil society. The Utopian schemes of levelling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional. Now, what property can the colonists be conceived to have, if their money may be granted away by others, without their consent?

“The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car.”

George Bernard Shaw Fanny's First Play

Fanny's First Play, Preface (1911)
1910s

“[about the name Disturbed] It had been a name I have been contemplating for a band for years. It just seems to symbolize everything we were feeling at the time. The level of conformity that people are forced into was disturbing to us and we were just trying to push the envelope and the name just sorta made sense.”

David Draiman (1973) American singer and songwriter

Livewire's one on one - David Draiman talks disturbing thoughts http://www.webcitation.org/640D4asgh, concertlivewire.com, 19 February 2005)

“President Herbert Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” With warnings about global warming reaching feverish levels, many are having second thoughts about all those cars. It seems they should instead be worrying about the chickens. … It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming. …The researchers found that, when it’s all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius. … Now that we know a greener diet is even more effective than a greener car, we can make a difference at every single meal, simply by leaving the animals off of our plates. Who would have thought: what’s good for our health is also good for the health of the planet!”

Kathy Freston American self-help writer

"Vegetarian is the New Prius", in the HuffPost (18 January 2007) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegetarian-is-the-new-pri_b_39014.html.

“In general, we seem to associate complexity with anything we find difficult to understand.”

Robert L. Flood (1959) British organizational scientist

Robert L. Flood (1987) "Complexity: a definition by construction of a conceptual framework." Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 4, p. 177.

“Love is a word we use for the desire to fornicate so that we seem more refined than farm animals." ~Lucian Balfour”

Suzanne Enoch (1964) American writer

Source: Reforming a Rake

“All of us live by the employment of countless untested assumptions, the truth or falsehood of which we can determine only through the hazard of our lives. Since most of us value our lives more than the truth, we leave such drastic tests for the fanatics.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 14 (p. 70)

“The irony is we thought we were behind the curve, that the industry had already peaked, and we were just trying to catch up.”

Sid Meier (1954) Canadian-American game programmer and designer

http://www.gamespot.com/features/sidlegacy/interview.html

“I thought it strange that medical science spent billions of dollars trying to find a cure for the common cold, and it did nothing to try to stop the aging process. It seemed insane that we were all going to die and nobody talked about it, asked why, or even looked for an answer to it.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Defender's Guide for Life's Toughest Questions (2011)

“When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.”

Michel Houellebecq book Atomised

Source: The Elementary Particles

Related topics