Over his desk Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds’ famous quotation: “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.” This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.
Undetermined: A suspicious death at Green Lake, an investigation’s limits (projects.seattletimes.com) On a late summer afternoon, Justin Kearns took his paddleboard and pushed off into the glasslike water of Seattle’s Green Lake. He traced the path that his young daughters had taken, gliding by a dark object that they thought was a turtle. It hadn’t moved in at least 30 minutes. “Weird,” he thought.
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (1822-1863)