Quotes About Context

what is natural in one place can seem unnatural in another, and some concepts travel rather poorly, if at all.

Being relevant simply consists in paying close attention to the point that is being talked about and saying nothing that is not significantly related to it.

The first is: if you can, read more than one history of an event or period that interests you. The second is: read a history not only to learn what really happened at a particular time and place in the past, but also to learn the way men act in all times and places, especially now.

He is familiar with their ambiguity and he has grown accustomed to the variation in their meanings as they occur in this context or that.

RULE 4. FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR'S PROBLEMS WERE.

you have to discover the meaning of a word you do not understand by using the meanings of all the other words in the context that you do understand.

The events of one's life take place, take place. How often have I used this expression, and how often have I stopped to think about what it means? Events do indeed take place, they have meaning in relation to things around them.

Competitive branding became a necessity of the machine age — within a context of manufactured sameness; image-based difference had to be manufactured along with the product.

While strategies of colonialism were about removing and seperating people from that which is most important to them, healing and recovery must be about restoring what has been taken, reconnecting people to the stories and context of one's life and family. (p. 19)

Context begins with other artists - seniors and mentors.

Oh, it's essential. I mean, you have to - if I'm writing about the Middle East, I have to go there, and if possible, stay long enough to get a real feeling for what's going on.

I can't write anything if I don't know where it's set, where the events are happening - even if the details of setting are minimal.

And we feel that those characters couldn't be anywhere but where they are, that those characters couldn't say the things they say if they were uprooted and planted in, say, Minnesota or Scotland.

That's what happens when works get reenvisioned: we learn something about the age that produced the original as well as about our own.

the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

Has he really insulted me? But an insult must be of intent, otherwise it can be none.

That is precisely why you will miss all the deepest meaning of Shakespeare, Dante, and the rest if you reduce their vital and creative statements about life and men to the dry, matter-of-fact terms of history, or ethics, or some other science. They belong to a different order.

In the complexities of real life, seldom is any argument right 100 percent of the time or wrong 100 percent of the time.

Lack of awareness or concern for the context and constraints of the times is only part of the problem of those today assessing such historic figures as Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln - or the American nation as a whole.

religious traditions build up meaning only over time and in a communal context. They can't be purchased like a burger or a pair of shoes.

the military loves its alphabet soup. At CILHI, I was issued a glossary of acronyms as thick as my arm. KIA/BNR: killed in action, body not recovered. DADCAP: dawn and dusk combat air patrol; AACP: advance airborne command post; TRF: tuned radio frequency. Or trident refit facility. I guess context is important for that one. But you get the idea. It makes a civilian want to join the AAAAAA: the Association for the Abolition of Abused Abbreviations and Asinine Acronyms.

The media tried to destroy my parents and has taken things completely out of context, but there's not a whole lot you can do in terms of fighting back. You have to hope that it passes, which it always does. But they have to be careful. They didn't necessarily sign up for this.

One of the most important principles of handling the Word properly and studying the Bible inductively is to interpret Scripture in the light of its context. Why? Because context always rules in interpretation.