Smoke Test

Famous quotes containing the words smoke and/or test:

“All those large dreams by which men long live well
Are magic-lanterned on the smoke of hell;”
—William Empson (1906–1984)

“Utopias are presented for our inspection as a critique of the human state. If they are to be treated as anything but trivial exercises of the imagination. I suggest there is a simple test we can apply.... We must forget the whole paraphernalia of social description, demonstration, expostulation, approbation, condemnation. We have to say to ourselves, “How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?””
—William Golding (b. 1911)