Quotes About Meaning

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

Many think the language is nice or pretty—like the song of a bird in the forest. There's a sense that the forest and especially humans don't depend on that sound for anything; it doesn't fill bellies or help people lead longer, healthier, happier lives. But nothing could be further from the truth. Physical, mental, and spiritual health are deeply intertwined.

Quien no vive para algo, ha de vivir para alguien.

Sometimes people have the idea that art should be highly refined. But I always believed that one could make art out of simple, humble things. Small things can be transcendental. They can change our way of looking at the world. I think it's important to make art out of almost anything.

What does that mean?' Anna whispered. 'What does that all mean? Abel ran his fingers through her hair again, and his hand wandered down and stayed on her throat. 'It means everything,' he whispered back. 'And nothing.

All true language is incomprehensible, Like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.

It has not been definitively proved that the language of words is the best possible language. And it seems that on the stage, which is above all a space to fill and a place where something happens, the language of words may have to give way before a language of signs whose objective aspect is the one that has the most immediate impact upon us.

Life consists of burning up questions.

If our life lacks a constant magic it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in consideration of their imagined form and meaning, instead of being impelled by their force.

If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless.

noscitur a sociis

some authorities use this canon at that broad level of generality.1 But we mean something more specific. When several nouns or verbs or adjectives or adverbs—any words—are associated in a context suggesting that the words have something in common, they should be assigned a permissible meaning that makes them similar.

So unless the text itself is ambiguous, the parol-evidence rule excludes precontractual indications of what the parties thought they were achieving.

It can convert nouns into verbs, and change a description of a panda bear ("Eats shoots and leaves") into a description of Jesse James ("Eats, shoots, and leaves"). No intelligent construction of a text can ignore its punctuation.

A traditional and hence anticipated rule of interpretation, no less than a traditional and hence anticipated meaning of a word, imparts meaning.

For example, post can refer to a piece of timber set upright, a position of employment, or mail.

But more often the language is not plain and unambiguous, so that to figure out its meaning, the implicit process of interpretation that we apply to plain and unambiguous language must be made express.

conveying two very different senses, as when table could refer either to a piece of furniture or to a numerical chart)

As Justinian's Digest put it: A verbis legis non est recedendum1 ("Do not depart from the words of the law").

Our appointment and confirmation process has, in other words, evolved into a mini-plebiscite on the meaning of the Constitution whenever a new justice is to be seated.

The ejusdem generis canon asserts that a general phrase at the end of a list is limited to the same type of things (the generic category) that are found in the specific list.

I asked myself not why I was alive but why I had lived. Out of expectation, I supposed, and wondered whether I still expected anything. It seemed I did. Something more is always expected.

Por qué?- Quiso saber- -¿Y por qué no?- repliqué"- El relato se detiene, hay un espacio en blanco. Se suspende oportunamente: la última frase es magnética, me ha retenido. En efecto, la cuestión no es por que me mataré, sino por qué no matarme.