Steam Shovel Quotes & Sayings

And when a lady's in the case, You know, all other things give place. — John Gay

Anyone looking up from the dock saw only beauty, on a monumental scale, while on the far side of the ship men turned black with dust as they shoveled coal - 5,690 tons in all - into the ship through openings in the hull called "side pockets." The ship burned coal at all times. Even when docked it consumed 140 tons a day to keep furnaces hot and boilers primed and to provide electricity from the ship's dynamo to power lights, elevators, and, very important, the Marconi transmitter, whose antenna stretched between its two masts. When the Lusitania was under way, its appetite for coal was enormous. Its 300 stokers, trimmers, and firemen, working 100 per shift, would shovel 1,000 tons of coal a day into its 192 furnaces to heat its 25 boilers and generate enough superheated steam to spin the immense turbines of its engines. — Erik Larson

The rule, acknowledged or not, seems to be that if we have great power we must use it. We would use a steam shovel to pick up a dime. We have experts who can prove there is no other way to do it. — Wendell Berry

Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads. — Charles Sanders Peirce

When President Teddy Roosevelt posed for the cameras astride a massive steam shovel during construction of the Panama Canal in 1906, it was more than a simple photo op. Though the scene was clearly staged, it symbolized a crucial moment in American history. — Alan Huffman

Wright correctly diagnoses the failure of the New Quest (and its current heirs, such as the Jesus Seminar, Crossan and Burton L. Mack)" to fit Jesus' overall life and ministry into sufficiently historical contexts and the broader theological narratives of his day. Wright helpfully observes that the uniquely North American work of the Jesus Seminar members is so idiosyncratic that it is often not even taken seriously in other parts of the world (JVG 35 n. 23). — Carey C. Newman

There are so many music genres competing against each other, but I feel like country music has always been a unified front. — Hillary Scott

Henri was giggling now, barely able to contain himself. "So I'm to shovel coal into my shoes hoping no one notices, while smoke and steam - what of the vapor?"
"There's little more smoke than a cigar, and the steam would be barely visible by gas lamp. It vents out the back of your trousers, under the tail of your coat."
"Marvelous!" said Henri. "I use a similar port for my own vapors. I want to try them, immediately. — Christopher Moore

Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, 'We're remembering'. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddamn steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them. — Ray Bradbury

Strategy was first used in Athens (508 BC) to describe the art of leadership used by the ten generals on the war council. Some argue for the more creative, human side, while others argue for the more analytic side of strategy. — Max McKeown

Soetsu Yanagi, in the "Unknown Craftsman", writes, "Man is most free when his tools are proportionate to his needs." For example, for optimal productivity, a carpenter needs woodworking tools and an environment conducive to his work, not a steam shovel or army tank. — Jeff Davidson

I act most like myself ... when I'm in my hometown, Santo Domingo. I try to get there about five times a year. — Junot Diaz

When people possess information they deem too problematic to disclose, they will deceive. Contrastively, in situations where little personal, relational, or professional costs — Anonymous

Names like clouds. Names like forests. Names like ever unfolding mathematical structures - names that begat themselves, in dreams of recursion. Names that split the world in two. Names that would drive a nail through your sanity. — Alastair Reynolds

Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chairs, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor - just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe; for, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man; and, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow! — Harriet Beecher Stowe

The brain and its satellite glands have now been probed to the point where no particular site remains that can reasonably be supposed to harbor a nonphysical mind. — E. O. Wilson

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car ... a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little. — Ben Sweetland

V. R. Lang

You are so serious, as if
a glacier spoke in your ear
or you had to walk through
the great gate of Kiev
to get to the living room.

I worry about this because I
love you. As if it weren't grotesque
enough that we live in hydrogen
and breathe like atomizers, you
have to think I'm a great architect!

and you float regally by on your
incessant escalator, calm, a jungle queen.
Thinking it a steam shovel. Looking
a little uneasy. But you are yourself
again, yanking silver beads off your neck.

Remember, the Russian Easter Overture
is full of bunnies. Be always high,
full of regard and honor and lanolin. Oh
ride horseback in pink linen, be happy!
and ride with your beads on, because it rains. — Frank O'Hara

Men to the left! Women to the right!
Eight words spokern quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. — Elie Wiesel

To the majority of those on the job his presence had been magical. Years afterward, the wife of one of the steam-shovel engineers, Mrs. Rose van Hardevald, would recall, "We saw him ... on the end of the train. Jan got small flags for the children, and told us about when the train would pass ... Mr. Roosevelt flashed us one of his well-known toothy smiles and waved his hat at the children ... " In an instant, she said, she understood her husband's faith in the man. "And I was more certain than ever that we ourselves would not leave until it [the canal] was finished." Two years before, they had been living in Wyoming on a lonely stop on the Union Pacific. When her husband heard of the work at Panama, he had immediately wanted to go, because, he told her, "With Teddy Roosevelt, anything is possible." At the time neither of them had known quite where Panama was located. — David McCullough