Quotes About Interpretation

Ik wist niet wat hij voelde want ik kende de taal van zijn gevoel niet

You are a schmuck," I informed the hero. "You're not using the word correctly," he said. "Yes I am," I said.

Gli abitanti del villaggio diventarono incarnazioni di quella leggenda che avevano ascoltato tante volte.

take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool...

As learnèd commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew.

Habéis probado claramente que la ignorancia, la pereza y el odio son los ingredientes apropiados para formar un legislador; que quienes mejor explican, interpretan y aplican las leyes son aquellos cuyos intereses y habilidades residen en pervertirlas, confundirlas y eludirlas.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

He put this engine [a silver pocket watch] into our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill: and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us, (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly) that he seldom did any thing without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said, it pointed out the time for every action of his life.

we neither of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the other.

Jonathan Swift

In fact, I think they should be called Lack's finches and not Darwin's. Darwin didn't see the significance of the birds. He thought there was just one species per island. He didn't even try to pull it together - he didn't do a bloody thing with them except collect them.

No vivimos en la realidad sino en nuestra imagen de ella.

Osjedam da energija za pisanje izvire iz moje nutrine, nema boljega primjera. Uvijek sam razmišljala da, iako su slova ista, njihovo je zna?enje druk?ije ako potje?u iz duše.

You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?

I think that the reader should enrich what he is reading. He should misunderstand the text; he should change it into something else.

The dictionary is based on the hypothesis -- obviously an unproven one -- that languages are made up of equivalent synonyms.

He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.

A book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols—spring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word.

The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man's memory. That is our duty. If we don't fulfill it, we feel unhappy.

It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

In the critic's vocabulary, the word precursor is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. -- Essay: Kafka and his Precursors

La literatura no es otra cosa que un sueño dirigido.

The art of writing is mysterious, the opinions we hold are ephemeral....

I know of a wild region whose librarians repudiate the vain superstitious custom of seeking any sense in books and compare it to looking for meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's hands . . . They admit that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but they maintain that this application is accidental and that books in themselves mean nothing. This opinion - we shall see - is not altogether false.