Quotes & Sayings About Inanimate Objects

My biggest fear? My biggest fear would be turning into an inanimate object. — Darren Criss

I am intrigued by inanimate objects. They're a piece of history, someone's statement and ideas of life. — Mike Mills

No doubt, God alone has become all these objects, animate and inanimate, but in the relative world all beings act and suffer according to their past Karma and innate tendencies. — Sarada Devi

Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives. — George Orwell

It's an essay that Sigmund Freud wrote about E.T.A. Hoffman's short story called "The Sandman" where someone mistakes an inanimate object for a living, breathing human being. And one of the things that Sigmund Freud really felt was that in modern life people assign qualities to objects around them that may not exist there whatsoever. — DJ Spooky

Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth, and our persistent leanings to error. But most of all they resemble us in their precious hold on life. — Joseph Conrad

Art objects are inanimate sad bits of matter hanging in the dark when no one is looking. The artist only does half the work; the viewer has to come up with the rest, and it is by empowering the viewer that the miracle of art gains its force. — Vik Muniz

Inanimate objects were often so much nicer than people. — Barbara Pym

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories
those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost — Russell Baker

Goodwill to all.' I know it's techinically 'goodwill to all men,' but in my mind, I drop the 'men' because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist. Goodwill shouldn't be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I'd even extend the goodwill not just to living creatures but to the dearly departed, and if we include them, we might as well include the undead, those supposedly mythic beings like vampires, and if they're in, then so are elves, fairies, and gnomes. Heck, since we're already being so generous in our big group hug, why not also embrace those supposedly inanimate objects like dolls and stuffed animals. I'm sure Santa would agree. 'Goodwill to all. — Rachel Cohn

This is a slippery slope. In addition to that at what point are we going to be okay marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table or this, you know, clock? Can we marry dogs? This is ridiculous. And biblically, again, I'm going to go right back to my fundamental Christian beliefs marriage is between one man and one woman. — Rebecca Kleefisch

The day was ill-omened from the beginning; one of those unlucky days when every little detail seems to go wrong and one finds oneself engaged in a perpetual and infuriating strife with inanimate objects. How truly fiendish the sub-human world can be on these occasions! How every atom, every cell, every molecule, seems to be leagued in a maddening conspiracy against the unfortunate being who has incurred its obscure displeasure! — Anna Kavan

I practiced saying I was gay to inanimate objects around the house. I told the soap dish in the bathroom, the ceiling fan above my bed, the blue drinking glass I favored above all the others simply because over the years its entire family had perished one by one during various interactions with hard surfaces around the kitchen and I'd convinced myself our solitude was linked.
"I'm gay," I told these things. "I'm a homo."
I would wait for the orphaned drinking glass to shatter, the ceiling fan to drop, or for the soap dish to let out a bloodcurdling scream. But nothing ever happened. The world went on as ever. — Nick Burd

Strange the affection which clings to inanimate objects - objects which cannot even know our love! But it is not return that constitutes the strength of an attachment. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise. — Thomas Hardy

I do have a tendency to invest inanimate objects with human qualities. — Matthea Harvey

Unfortunately, you choose things because they're safer---that is understandable, though. Inanimate objects don't do unexpected things or break your heart or betray you. Objects are safe. People are complicated. — J.R. Ward

Yet, in reality, Ted loved things more than he loved people. He could find life in an abandoned bicycle or an old car, and feel a kind of compassion for these inanimate objects, more compassion than he could ever feel for another human being. — Ann Rule

We are all victimized by the natural perversity of inanimate objects ... and the assorted human beings who perpetuate and maintain this perversity. — Isaac Asimov

There are no inanimate objects ... — Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Imagine a problem in psychology: to find a way of getting people in our day and age - Christians, humanitarians, nice, kind people - to commit the most heinous crimes without feeling any guilt. There is only one solution - doing just what we do now: you make them governors, superintendents, officers or policemen, a process which, first of all, presupposes acceptance of something that goes by the name of government service and allows people to be treated like inanimate objects, precluding any humane or brotherly relationships, and, secondly, ensures that people working for this government service must be so interdependent that responsibility for any consequences of the way they treat people never devolves on any one of them individually. — Leo Tolstoy

It is 32c today, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is the small sense of relief I glean from attaching my body to the vents of my delicious cooling piece. It is a stunning unit, exquisite in all its forms, exceptional in its application, and effective in all its functions. I would marry it, if only I knew it would not die on me sometime within the next five years. Appliances, like obedient children or silent extroverts, cannot last forever, and while my unbidden affection kept my other air conditioner alive for the better part of ten years, not all inanimate objects can be fueled by my love. — Michelle Franklin

We must treat all objects, animate and inanimate, with respect and honor. — Russell Eric Dobda

There's a natural depravity in inanimate things that's quite shocking, when you think of it. — Josephine Pinckney

Inanimate objects are sometimes parties to litigation. A ship has legal personality ... The corporation ... is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases ... So it should be as respects valleys, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. — William O. Douglas

I love bookshelves, and stacks of books, spines, typography, and the feel of pages between my fingertips. I love bookmarks, and old bindings, and stars in margins next to beautiful passages. I love exuberant underlinings that recall to me a swoon of language-love from a long-ago reading, something I hoped to remember. I love book plates, and inscriptions in gifts from loved ones, I love author signatures, and I love books sitting around reminding me of them, being present in my life, being. I love books. Not just for what they contain. I love them as objects too, as ever-present reminders of what they contain, and because they are beautiful. They are one of my favorite things in life, really at the tiptop of the list, easily my favorite inanimate things in existence, and ... I am just not cottoning on to this idea of making them ... not exist anymore. Making them cease to take up space in the world, in my life? No, please do not take away the physical reality of my books. — Laini Taylor

When I glanced at the chair, it started to shake. I'd like to think it was scared of me, but I rarely invoked that response in living things, let alone inanimate objects. — Kelley Armstrong

Without perceiving things through the old filter of past conditioning and conceptualization, one can sense the universe is intensely alive. Even so-called inanimate objects - I often pick up little objects and just look at them and sense that they are alive. Physicists actually confirm that what we perceive as dead matter is not dead at all. Everything is an intensely alive energy field. That aliveness is only an aspect of the aliveness or life that I am. — Eckhart Tolle

I feel like these characters, these places, these beings and plots, and even these inanimate objects are counting on me for survival. It's my responsibility to reveal them to the world, to show my readers the names of these things, to show them their histories and stories. — Nicholas Trandahl

At age four I was a camera. I took pictures with my eyes. I framed my photo within my vision and blinked my eyes to snap the shutter of my memory. Since that time, I've been impersonating inanimate objects at every opportunity. — Sophia Amoruso

If inanimate objects are left to stand in their world, and are not invited out to mingle with our sense of self, they will quietly console and delight us. But to bind possessions up closely with the mind is less than fair to both. — Kennedy Fraser

The bottom line is that people dont have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind, — Ingrid Newkirk

I've got the Mark of Cain," said Simon. "That means nothing can kill me, right?"
"You can kill yourself," Magnus said, somewhat unhelpfully. "As far as I know, inanimate objects can accidentally kill you. So if you were planning on teaching yourself the lambada on a greased platform over a pit full of knives, I wouldn't."
"There goes my Saturday. — Cassandra Clare

There's nothing so ill advised as attributing a metonymic value to inanimate objects. — Valeria Luiselli

Everything in your world is filled with intelligence, even the so-called inanimate objects. Treat them intelligently if you wish to obtain intelligent, harmonious results. — Catherine Ponder

In Tantric Buddhism we call the inherent knowledge that all animate and inanimate objects possess of themselves - their emptiness. — Frederick Lenz

Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost. The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him, and the three major classifications are based on the method each object uses to achieve its purpose. As a general rule, any object capable of breaking down at the moment when it is most needed will do so. — Russell Baker

You've been avoiding me," he said, talking to the sandwich.
I laughed. He looked over at me. "Sorry. I just realized that you talk to a lot of inanimate objects. — Rachel Hawthorne

Farm animals are just as interesting and intelligent as the dogs and cats who we know a bit betterYet they are treated by the meat industry as though they are inanimate objects with no feelings or personalities. — Emily Deschanel

I needed to be brought into the loop about who's hot and who's not, when I moved here. You know how it is," he added. "Social status and all that."
And then I was deflated, because I understood what he meant.
"Yes, I'm sure they were happy to fill you in that I'm part of the 'who's not' category. In fact, I'd imagine I'm probably on the top of that list."
He lifted an eyebrow in question, and I noticed the colour of his eyes again for the second time today. "You're kidding, right? I don't think any guy has you on his 'who's not' list."
"Then please, enlighten me as to which lucky category I've fallen into. It's always nice to be sorted like inanimate objects. — Lacey Weatherford

They think I'm silly. I do silly things. I fall down and run into things. I talk to inanimate objects. I'll hold a pickup stick to my ear and say, What? What's that? I can't hear you — Stephen Colbert

How do you wash your clothes?" "Sally has a small washer and dryer." "Sally?" Selene said. "Who is that?" "The Winnebago we're traveling in. Long story, but my dad likes to name inanimate objects." "Ah, that makes perfect sense. The copier at our office is named Hateful Bitch. — Robin Alexander

Small boys were a mystery to Sylvie. The satisfaction they gained from throwing sticks or stones for hours on end, the obsessive collection of inanimate objects, the brutal destruction of the fragile world around them, all seemed at odds with the men they were supposed to become. — Kate Atkinson

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly ... — John Galt

Every person and everything is an extension of your consciousness. This includes humans, animals, elements of nature, inanimate objects and everything down to a subatomic level. You have manifested them and they have manifested you through the collective consciousness. — Russell Anthony Gibbs

The Piranha didn't talk like a person. He said things like "If you fuckin' buy this bond in a fuckin' trade, you're fuckin' fucked." And "If you don't pay fuckin' attention to the fuckin' two-year, you get your fuckin' face ripped off." Noun, verb, adjective: fucker, fuck, fucking. No part of speech was spared. His world was filled with copulating inanimate objects and people getting their faces ripped off. — Michael Lewis

The problem is that humans have victimized animals to such a degree that they are not even considered victims. They are not even considered at all. They are nothing. They don't count; they don't matter; they're commodities like TV sets and cell phones. We have actually turned animals into inanimate objects - sandwiches and shoes. — Gary Yourofsky

Other useful commands to teach your dog are 'stay,' 'heel,' 'remove your snout from that person's groin,' 'stop humping the Barcalounger,' 'do not bark violently for two hours at inanimate objects such as a flowerpot,' ' do not eat poop,' and 'if you must eat poop, then at least refrain from licking my face afterward'. — Dave Barry

our ancestors have told stories of war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of lower animals and inanimate objects. — Lemuel Arthur Pittenger

It should also be born in mind that the research on 'movement' and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example the 'Portrait of Madame S.' (1912) and the 'Seated Woman' (1914). — Gino Severini

Nothing in the tangible word that isn't living has any value beyond a dollar amount. Considering that dollars can only buy more tangible and inanimate objects, it would seem a far more worthwhile goal to instead learn to place value on the treasures of the mind. Memories, knowledge and skill together are the only things we will ever actually own. — Ashly Lorenzana

None of us have a real name, Leonidas, just names we like and names people give us. — Kendra L. Saunders

That's one reason why today meeting in bars or in the neighborhood is far less common among LGBT couples than it used to be, and why nearly 70 percent of LGBT couples meet online. (BLT couples - bacon, lettuce, and tomato couples - are inanimate objects and are not engaging in romantic pursuits.) — Aziz Ansari

A book which is left on a shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into new life. — Susan Hill

To all the kids from the "special" reading class back in high school (the one where you tried to form words using wooden blocks)
PLEASE stop telling me that I can't blame an "inanimate object" for the off-the-hook gun violence in this country. YES! ... I CAN!!! I blame all the "inanimate objects" in Congress who refuse to pass sensible gun legislation because they're too chicken-shit to take on Wayne LaPierre and the gun lobby. — Quentin R. Bufogle

There'd been blood in his eyes and Johnny was dying, but it was the most beautiful and frozen dawn Elisha had ever seen. He'd laid on the ground and stared through red stains at a bloody sun and bloody clouds and night's last death whisper. Even the blind remember a dawn like that. — Kendra L. Saunders

Appliances have idiosyncracies, just like us. Unfortunately they have picked up our less attractive traits - they are proud, spiteful, and unforgiving. — Mary McGrory

Nothing is inanimate; what is the rest is our interpretation. — Dejan Stojanovic

Maybe when people take their eyes off them, inanimate objects become even more inanimate. — Haruki Murakami

Inanimate objects are harmless indeed, Mr. Mortmain. But one cannot always say the same of the men who use them. — Cassandra Clare

My father used to claim that inanimate objects hate us and plot our downfall behind our backs. He was probably right. — Michael Marshall Smith

My greatest pleasure was the enjoyment of a serene sky amidst these verdant woods: yet I loved all the changes of Nature; and rain, and storm, and the beautiful clouds of heaven brought their delights with them. When rocked by the waves of the lake my spirits rose in triumph as a horseman feels with pride the motions of his high fed steed.
But my pleasures arose from the contemplation of nature alone, I had no companion: my warm affections finding no return from any other human heart were forced to run waste on inanimate objects. — Mary Shelley

The animators bring their own spontaneity to it as well, because when they do a take of a shot it really is like just one continuous activity for them. They launch into it and do it, and they're not even quite sure how it's going to turn out when they're doing it. They're sort-of sculpting their way through a scene and trying to make this inanimate object alive. — Wes Anderson

The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him. — Russell Baker

Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with a strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower watches, the face of an edifice contemplates. — Victor Hugo

It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys. — Patti Smith

I hang up. Actually, I smash the phone down because I take my anger out on inanimate objects. Which is better than taking it out on people, right? — Carrie Jones

Our culture takes us out of the body and sells our loyalty into political systems, into religions, into inanimate objects and machines, collections, so forth and so on. The felt experience of the body is what the psychedelics are handing back to us. — Terence McKenna

If I were to draw, I would apply myself only to studying the form of inanimate objects, I said somewhat imperiously, because I wanted to change the subjects and also because a natural inclination does truly lead me to recognise my moods in the motionless suffering of things. — Italo Calvino

I should acquaint the reader with the basic principles of the mythology I adhered to then. I believed ... that inanimate objects were no less fallible than people. They, too, could be forgetful. And, if you had enough patience, you could catch them by surprise. — Stanislaw Lem

It is thus that inanimate objects seem to soak up the essence of living things, and later cause pain or pleasure when we merely look at them. — Margaret George

Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time - Christians, humanitarians or, simply, kindhearted people - into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth; which means, first, that they must be convinced of the existence of a kind of organization called 'government service,' allowing men to be treated like inanimate objects and banning thereby all human brotherly relations with them; and secondly, that the people entering this 'government service' must be so unified that the responsibility for their dealings with men would never fall on any one of them individually. — Leo Tolstoy

I've taped a list to my bathroom mirror. It's my Most Violated List ... Anger. I gave the finger to an ATM. You see, the ATM charged me a $1.75 fee for withdrawl. A dollar seventy-five? That's bananas. So I flipped off the screen. As Julie tells me, when you start making rude gestures to inanimate objects, it's time to work on your anger issues. Mine is not the shouting, pulsing-vein-in-the forehead rage. Like my dad, I rarely raise my voice. My anger problem is more one of long-lasting resentment. It's a heap of real or perceived slights that eventually build up into a mountain of bitterness ... get some perspective ... I ask myself the question God asked Jonah. 'Do you do well to be angry?' ... The world will not end ... Mute your petty resentment. — A. J. Jacobs

Imagine a day when all plants and trees go on a strike, a bandh just for a day. All of us will die for want of oxygen." Reading this, I was instantly reminded of Bolivia's recent legislation (in December 2010) to grant all nature equal rights as humans. Justice William O. Douglas, writing against a 1972 decision by the United States Supreme Court, wrote, "Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation ... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life ... The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled. — Anonymous

My affinity, as a novelist, with Dickens has been overstated. I relish the way everything in his prose pulsates with life force, and I'm in debt to him every time I invest inanimate objects with uncanny animism. But his female characters annoy me. — Michel Faber

As the conceptual, material world increases its hold on us, and inanimate objects become more lifelike, we humans must become more human. Open hearts, kindness and care-these are our most precious gifts. — Sakyong Mipham

The discipline of programming is most like sorcery. Both use precise language to instruct inanimate objects to do our bidding. Small mistakes in programs or spells can lead to completely unforseen behavior: e.g., see the story, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Neither study is easy: " ... her [Galinda's] early appetite for sorcery had waned once she'd heard what a grind it was to learn spells and, worse, to understand them." from the book "Wicked" by G. Maguire. — Richard E. Pattis

For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives. — Anonymous

I love the life of objects. When the children go to bed, the objects come to life. I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects. — Josef Sudek

I don't believe in blaming inanimate objects for anything. — Peter Benchley

If I knew how to draw, I would apply myself only to studying the form of inanimate objects, I said somewhat imperiously, because I wanted to change the subject and also because a natural inclination does truly lead me to recognize my moods in the motionless suffering of things. Miss — Italo Calvino

The feelings and the memories and the perceptions in me are my own, they are terrible and secret and if I can turn them out, if I can display them on canvas ... or even on my skin if I must ... " He turned his head and looked at her. "Then they are special. Do you see? I create from my secrets, from the halls in my soul. — Kendra L. Saunders

Following the emergence of leaked information regarding Alice Calloway, Etgar Allison has suffered considerable loss motivation, energy and interest in his usual pursuits (Wikipedia, YouTube, Kurt Vonnegut). He has been seen to spend long periods of time staring at inanimate objects and will occasionally stop whatever he is doing to lie face down on the floor and sing "One Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton (a song he has described as "all that's left"). In an official statement given earlier today, he described bed as "better that sex" and Alice Calloway as "the horriblest bitch I know". — Ben Brooks

Your mind, in order to defend itself starts to give life to inanimate objects. When that happens it solves the problem of stimulus and response because literally if you're by yourself you lose the element of stimulus and response. Somebody asks a question, you give a response. So, when you lose the stimulus and response, what I connected to is that you actually create all the stimulus and response. — Willi Smith

I love museums, but I always thought there was something funny about a group of strangers silently staring at works of inanimate objects together. Each person is having a very personal and maybe even emotional experience, but it's in the confines of an extremely quiet and sterile room. — Hiro Murai

When we say disparaging things, even about inanimate objects, they can stick, so use discernment as to what you put out to the universe. — Russell Eric Dobda

I sat at a table in my shadowy kitchen, staring down a bottle of Boone's Farm
Hard Lemonade, when a magic fluctuation hit. My wards shivered and died, leaving my home stripped of its defenses. The TV flared into life, unnaturally loud in the empty house.
I raised my eyebrow at the bottle and bet it that another urgent bulletin was on.
The bottle lost.
"Urgent bulletin!" Margaret Chang announced. "The Attorney General advises all citizens that any attempt at summoning or other activities resulting in the appearance of a supernaturally powerful being can be hazardous to yourself and to other citizens."
"No shit," I told the bottle. — Ilona Andrews

Grace is neither gentleness nor fragility. Grace is treating yourself, others, and even inanimate objects with respect. — Kamand Kojouri

Throughout one's life, time addresses man in a variety of languages: in those of innocence, love, faith, experience, history, fatigue, cynicism, guilt, decay, etc. Of those, the language of love is clearly the lingua franca. Its vocabulary absorbs all the other tongues, and its utterance gratifies a subject, however inanimate it may be. Also, by being thus uttered, a subject acquires an ecclesiastical, almost sacred denomination, echoing both the way we perceive the objects of our passions and the Good Book's suggestion as to what God is. Love is essentially an attitude maintained by the infinite toward the finite. The reversal constitutes either faith or poetry. Akhmatova's — Joseph Brodsky

If the technocratic class often invokes technology, it is because these inanimate objects can take on a trajectory of their own and so cover for the manager's inability to give leadership. — John Ralston Saul

Peabody, with me."
She waited until they were back in her office. "Don't hover over McNab like that."
"Sir?"
"You hover over him, you're going to make him think you're worried."
"I am worried. The twenty-four-"
"Worry all you want, dump on me if you need to. But don't let him see it. He's starting to fray, and he's trying hard not to show it. You try just as hard not to show it. If you need to vent, go out there on the kitchen terrace. Scream your lungs out."
"Is that what you do?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes I kick inanimate objects. Sometimes I jump Roarke and have jungle sex. The last," she said after a beat, "is not an option for you."
"But I think it would really make me feel better, and be a more productive member of the investigative team."
"Good, humor is good. Get me coffee. — J.D. Robb

In just the last issue of Science Today there had been an article on some new psychotropic agents of the group of so-called benignimizers (the N,N-dimethylpeptocryptomides), which induced states of undirected joy and beatitude. Yes, yes! I could practically see that article now. Hedonidil, Euphoril, Inebrium, Felicitine, Empathan, Ecstasine, Halcyonal and a whole spate of derivatives. Though by replacing an amino group with a hydroxyl, you obtained instead Furiol, Antagonil, Rabiditine, Sadistizine, Dementium, Flagellan, Juggernol and many other polyparanoidal stimulants of the group of so-called phrensobarbs (for these prompted the most vicious behavior, the lashing out at objects animate as well as inanimate - and especially powerful here were the cannibal-cannabinols and manicomimetics). — Stanislaw Lem

In my experience even inanimate objects have a will of their own, and they won't be found until they want to be, until they're good and ready, she says. — Menna Van Praag

These inferences are the signature characteristic of something called Theory of Mind. We activate it all the time. We try to see our entire world in terms of motivations, ascribing motivations to our pets and even to inanimate objects. The skill is useful for selecting a mate, for navigating the day-to-day issues surrounding living together, for parenting. Theory of Mind is something humans have like no other creature. It is as close to mind reading as we are likely to get. — John Medina

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects. — William Shenstone

I know it's technically goodwill to all men, but in my mind, I drop the men because that feels segregationist/elitist/sexist/generally bad ist.
Goodwill shouldn't be just for men. It should also apply to women and children, and all animals, even the yucky ones like subway rats. I'd even
extend the goodwill not just to living creatures but to the dearly departed, and if we include them, we might as well include the undead, those
supposedly mythic beings like vampires, and if they're in, then so are elves, fairies, and gnomes. Heck, since we're already being so generous in our
big group hug, why not also embrace those supposedly inanimate objects like dolls and stu — Rachel Cohn

Not only does Japan have an economic need and the technological know-how for robots, but it also has a cultural predisposition. The ancient Shinto religion, practiced by 80 percent of Japanese, includes a belief in animism, which holds that both objects and human beings have spirits. As a result, Japanese culture tends to be more accepting of robot companions as actual companions than is Western culture, which views robots as soulless machines. In a culture where the inanimate can be considered to be just as alive as the animate, robots — Alec J. Ross

Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability. — Zbigniew Herbert

The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects,as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind. — David Hume

People often found themselves assenting to inanimate objects in the Moonlite All-Nite. — Joseph Fink