It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater licensetothis formidable engine, inorder to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view; for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.

-Cooper,James Fenimore
  The American Democrat,'On the Press'.

TheTimes is, we suppose, entitled to the character it gives of itself, of being the'leading journal of Europe', and is perhaps the greatest engine of temporary opinion in the world.

-Hazlitt,William
  In the Edinburgh Review, May.

Theyare sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs 578 Grate on their scrannel Pipes of wretched straw, The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread, Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said, But that two-handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

-Milton,John
  Lycidas, l.122^31.

As the god of contemporary man's idolatry, science is a two-handed engine, and as such science is too important a human activity to leave to the scientists.

-Montagu, Ashley originally Israel Ehrenberg
  Book review in the NewYork Times, 26  Apr.

Then old age and experience, hand in hand, Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong. Huddled in dirt, the reasoning engine lies, Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.

-Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of
  'A SatyrAgainst Mankind', l.25^30 (published1679).

That damnable woman's trick of heaping obligations on a man, of placing yourself so entirelyand helplesslyat his mercy that at last he dare not take a step without running to you for leave. I know a poor wretch whose one desire in life is to run away from his wife. She prevents him by threatening to throw herself in front of the engine of the train he leaves her in. That is what all women do. If we try to go where you do not want us to go there is no law to prevent us; but when we take the first step your breasts are under our foot as it descends: your bodies are under our wheels as we start. No woman shall ever enslave me in that way.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  JohnTanner to AnnWhitefield. Man and Superman, act1.

   A crank is a small engine that causes revolutions.

-Sheehy-Skeffington, Francis
On being described as a crank, quoted by his son Owen.

That great, growing engine of changeötechnology.

-Toffler, Alvin
  Future Shock.

   That vessel in which the powers of steam are to be employed to work the engine, which is called the Cylinder in common fire engines, and which I call the SteamVessel, must, during the whole time the engine is at work, be kept ashot asthesteamthat entersit; first, by enclosing it ina case of wood, oranyother materialsthat transmit heat slowly; secondly, by surrounding it with steam or other heated bodies; and thirdly, by suffering neither water noranyother substance colder thansteam to enter and touch it during that time.

-Watt,James
  Specification of patent, 5 Jan, for a new method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines.

   That curious engine, your white hand.

-Webster,John
  The Duchess of Malfi, act 3, sc.2.