“
A book is a machine to think with, but it need not, therefore, usurp the functions either of the bellows or the locomotive.
— I. A. Richards
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A book is a machine to think with, but it need not, therefore, usurp the functions either of the bellows or the locomotive." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source:
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
About I. A. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards (26 February 1893 – 7 September 1979), known as I. A. Richards, was an English educator, literary critic, and rhetorician whose work contributed to the foundations of the New Criticism, a formalist movement in literary theory, which emphasized the close reading of a literary text, especially poetry, in an effort to discover how a work of literature functions as a self-contained, self-referential æsthetic object.
About I. A. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards (26 February 1893 – 7 September 1979), known as I. A. Richards, was an English educator, literary critic, and rhetorician whose work contributed to the foundations of the New Criticism, a formalist movement in literary theory, which emphasized the close reading of a literary text, especially poetry, in an effort to discover how a work of literature functions as a self-contained, self-referential æsthetic object.
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