Quotes About Meaning

For it is clear, on the one hand, that have you been familiar with these things for a long time—whatever you wish to signify when you utter being—and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.

What being is there that does not desire happiness? Well then, since all of us desire happiness, how can we be happy? – that is the next question.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

For it is clear, on the one hand, that you have been familiar with these things for a long time —whatever you wish to signify when you utter being— and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.

For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?

Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape.

He means well' is useless unless he does well.

We are all writing the story of our life. We want to know what it's "about," what are its themes and which theme is on the rise. We demand of it something deeper, or richer, or more substantive. We want to know where we're headed __not to spoil our own ending by ruining the surprise, but we want to ensure that when the ending comes, it won't be shallow. We will not have done something. We will not have squandered our time here.

He wasn't much for erasing anyway. Sometimes your mistakes showed you the really interesting connections between your brain, your hand, and your heart, the ones you might otherwise never know were there. They were important even if you had no idea what they meant. Like now, for instance. Coming back here might be the biggest mistake he'd ever made. But it might also be the most important thing he'd ever done.

Before August 29, 2005, "antediluvian" was simply a word to me, a pretty Biblical reference that had a nice ring to it but no real personal resonance for me. I vaguely understood that it connoted a state of innocence

what's the code for New Orleans? MSY? That doesn't make sense

Why does it happen? Why is the pain of every day translated so constantly into our dreams, in the ever-repeated scene of the unlistened-to story?

But are they not themselves stories of a new Bible?

Clausner shows me the bottom of his bowl. Where others have carved their numbers, and Alberto and I our names, Clausner has written: 'Ne pas chercher à comprendre.

Molte cose furono allora fra noi dette e fatte; ma di queste è bene che non resti memoria.

infin che un giorno senso non avrà più dire : domani (...jusqu'à ce qu'un jour dire demain n'ait plus de sens)

Tant d'histoire, dit le duc d'Auge au duc d'Auge, tant d'histoire pour quelques calembours, pour quelques anachronismes! Je trouve cela misérable. On n'en sortira donc jamais?

I'm an American, our names don't mean shit.

True, he was thinking about American constitutional law, and he probably meant the remark as a joke.

and that revelation murdered all that I once did know. Where once I asked of the God, 'Who are you?' now I ask, 'Who am I?

Something ... made him feel small, not in the way of orphans or beggars or children, but in a good way. In the way of souls.

What did it mean to a prophet to sing in a God´s own voice? Would that make him a shaman, as in the days described in the Tusk? Or would it make him a god?

Like life, games were governed by rules. But unlike life, games were utterly defined by those rules. The rules were the game, and if one played by different rules, then one simply played a different game. Since a fixed framework of rules determined the meaning of every move as a move, games possessed a clarity that made life seen like a drunken brawl by comparison. The proprieties were indubitable, the permutations secure; only the outcome was shrouded.

Vulgar languages, especially when native, stand too close to the press of life. Their meanings are too easily warped by our insights and experiences. The sheer otherness of Gilcûnya serves to insulate the semantics of sorcery from the inconstancies of our lives.