Quotes About Interpretation

On sait à peu près pourquoi une Å"uvre est mauvaise. Mais bien moins pourquoi elle est bonne.

But the text recorded it as 'Hell, you're in my hand'—an H instead of a W." Irene grimaced. "You mean everyone who sees that text will believe my husband swore at his sword?" "I'm afraid so," Chem said apologetically.

The Teachers, even of Christianity, are in general, the most ignorant of the true meaning of that which they teach. There is no book of which so little is known as the Bible. To most who read it, it is as incomprehensible as the Sohar. p. 105

Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

Ciascuno vuole imporre agli altri quel mondo che ha dentro, come se fosse fuori, e che tutti debbano vederlo a suo modo, e che gli altri non possano esservi se non come li vede lui.

Todos os que afirmam saber as coisas sobre as quais medito, seja por tê-las ouvido de mim, seja por tê-las ouvido de outros, seja por tê-las descoberto sozinhos, não é possível, segundo meu parecer, que tenham entendido algo desse objeto. Sobre essas coisas não existe um texto escrito meu nem existirá jamais.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.

Pooh, he said. Much alike, aren't they, this case and that! There is nothing to hinder their being so, said I, but even if they are not alike and if the man thinks they are, do you believe he will any the less answer what appears to him, whether we forbid him or not?

I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.

Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.

The clearest argument against Plato's authorship is probably that Plato never wrote a work whose interpretation was as simple and straightforward as that of Alcibiades.

if one of us, or someone else, merely {12} says that something is so, do we accept that it is so? Or should we examine what the speaker means?

It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue.

SOCRATES: And is then all that is just pious? Or is all that is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some of it is and some is not? [12] EUTHYPHRO: I do not follow what you are saying, Socrates.

For in this way the God would seem to indicate to us and not allow us to doubt that these beautiful poems are not human, or the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed.

EUTHYPHRO: The truth is, Socrates, that I'm at a loss as to how to say what I want to say; somehow or other whatever we put forward has a habit of moving around and refusing to stay wherever we try to make it stand.

a human being is the measure of all things. of the things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.

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?

The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to becomeerased as the years go by, but often they change, or even grow, by incorporating extraneous features. Judges know this very well: almost never do two eyewitnesses of the same event describe it in the same way and with the same words, even if the event is recent and if neither of them has a personal interest in distorting it.

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.