People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
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Context: An air-ship attendant has just steadied a stumbling passenger, and been scolded for it.
Source: Part I, "The Air-Ship"
Beware of first-hand ideas! … First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let…
Vashti: But I can see you! … What more do you want? Kuno: I want to see you not through the Machine … I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.
No one confessed the Machine was out of hand. Year by year it was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence. The better a man knew his own duties upon it, the less he understood the…
Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying…
We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down…