Pears Soap/changes To The Formula

Famous quotes containing the words pears, soap and/or formula:

    The pears are not seen
    As the observer wills.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    A ‘spasm band’ is a miscellaneous collection of a soap box, tin cans, pan tops, nails, drumsticks, and little Negro boys. When mixed in the proper proportions this results in the wildest shuffle dancing, accompanied by a bumping rhythm.
    —For the City of New Orleans, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Ideals possess the strange quality that if they were completely realized they would turn into nonsense. One could easily follow a commandment such as “Thou shalt not kill” to the point of dying of starvation; and I might establish the formula that for the proper functioning of the mesh of our ideals, as in the case of a strainer, the holes are just as important as the mesh.
    Robert Musil (1880–1942)