How small a things will affect the whole tenor of a life time; trifles lighter than straws are levers in the building up of destiny.
We stared and stared until it was almost too late to catch the levers, sweep off and rise again; and then we held our peace for a long run upward.
A simple, single piece that can be taken into the hand, as a spade, a hammer, a knife, is a tool; a combination of wheels, levers, pulleys, etc., is a machine.
The work was easy; and when he did happen to make mistakes, they were corrected patiently by the grey-bearded one, and not used as levers for boosting him into the presence of Mr Bickersdyke, as they might have been in some departments.
Mozart obviously had in view, not the pianoforte which was just coming into use in his day, but the clavichord. This instrument was sounded by striking the strings with bits of brass placed in the farther end of the keys which were simple and direct levers.
Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments, listening to two phone circuits, one with each ear, and hands moving from switches to rheostats to buttons and levers, he was completely informed as to the instant-by-instant status of everything in his department.