The human mind is so complex and things are so tangled up with each other that, to explain a blade of straw, one would have to take to pieces an entire universe. A definition is a sack of flour compressed into a thimble.
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Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
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If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.
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A faith in culture is as bad as a faith in religion; both expressions imply a turning away from those very things which culture and religion are about. Culture as a collective name for certain very valuable activities is a permissible word; but culture hypostatized, set up on its own, made into a faith, a cause, a banner, a platform, is unendurable. For none of the activities in question cares a straw for that faith or cause. It is like a return to early Semitic religion where names themselves were regarded as powers.
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Men think highly of those who rise rapidly in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers.
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The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others
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The key to life is imagination. If you don't have that, no mater what you have, it's meaningless. If you do have imagination...you can make feast of straw.
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I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.
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Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
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A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
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I think it is completely unacceptable for someone like Christopher Meyer to break trust in the way that he has done,
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Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.
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'Not to die on the straw at home, Those hands to close these eyes,...
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"Not to die on the straw at home, Those hands to close these eyes,...
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