Quotes About Interpretation

When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning.

Anything can become excusable when seen from the standpoint of the result

The lack of insight to reality, life and history as well as into God's ways, or sunan in His creation, some people will continue to seek or demand the impossible. They will imagine what does not or cannot happen, misunderstand occurrences and events, and interpret them on the basis of cherished illusions which in no way reflect God's sunan or the essence of Islamic law.

I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing.

History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others. Human

Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.

Nothing is inherently beautiful, sacred, or sexy; human feelings make it so.

History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.

si sumamos todas las víctimas de todas estas persecuciones, resulta que en esos tres siglos los politeístas romanos mataron a no más que unos pocos miles de cristianos.1 Por el contrario, a lo largo de los siguientes 1.500 años, los cristianos masacraron a millones de correligionarios para defender interpretaciones ligeramente distintas de la religión del amor y la compasión.

The most common answer is that our language is amazingly supple.

Written language may have been conceived as a modest way of describing reality, bit it gradually became a powerful way to reshape reality.

In the minds of the illiterate peasants, who did not speak Latin, "Hoc est corpus!" got garbled into "Hocus-pocus!" Thus was born the powerful spell that can transform a frog into a prince and a pumpkin into a carriage.6

But numbers alone don't count for much in history.

This is why we can still find ourselves between the pages of the Bible, in the writings of Confucius or within the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. These classics were created by humans just like us, hence we feel that they talk about us. In modern theatre productions, Oedipus, Hamlet and Othello may wear jeans and T-shirts and have Facebook accounts, but their emotional conflicts are the same as in the original play.

A verdadeira especialidade dos sacerdotes e dos gurus nunca foi provocar a chuva, curar, fazer profecias ou magia. A sua especialidade foi sempre a interpretação. Um sacerdote não é alguém que sabe fazer uma dança da chuva para pôr fim à seca. Um sacerdote é alguém que sabe justificar por que motivo a dança da chuva não resultou, e por que motivo devemos continuar a acreditar no nosso deus apesar de ele parecer ignorar as nossas orações.

the name of "sharing experiences," people are encouraged to understand what happens to them in terms of how others see it.

Most people presume that reality is either objective or subjective, and that there is no third option. Hence once they satisfy themselves that something isn't just their own subjective feeling, they jump to the conclusion it must be objective.

Like a child thinking that his parents are fighting because of him, the monotheist is convinced that the Persians are fighting the Babylonians because of him.

When religions advertise themselves, they tend to emphasise their beautiful values. But God often hides in the small print of factual statements.

All humanist sects believe that human experience is the supreme source of authority and meaning, yet they interpret human experience in different ways.

Arte es cualquier cosa que la gente crea que es arte, y la belleza está en los ojos del espectador».

In the language of the Dinka people of the Sudan, 'Dinka' simply means 'people'. People who are not Dinka are not people. The Dinka's bitter enemies are the Nuer. What does the word Nuer mean in Nuer language? It means 'original people'. Thousands of miles from the Sudan deserts, in the frozen ice-lands of Alaska and north-eastern Siberia, live the Yupiks. What does Yupik mean in Yupik language? It means 'real people'.3 In

The world of thought, belief and feeling is by definition far more difficult to decipher.

Can you name a single great work of art which is not about conflict?