Quotes About Interpretation

For much of art lies in the shifting aperture between the shadowy fore-image in the anticipating mind of the observer and the realized revelatory image in the work itself, and that is what we must learn to perceive more finely in the Bible.

What we have in this great story, as I have proposed elsewhere, is not merely a report of history but an imagining of history that is analogous to what Shakespeare did with historical figures and events in his history plays.

One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. He might have added that everyone is entitled to their own interpretations but not their own logic. When we accept lies as facts, or illogic as logic, we lose the shared reality necessary to tackle our common problems. We become powerless.

To him who looks on the world reductively, the world looks reductively back.

The messenger is the message." Of

Existe um princípio na percepção humana, o princípio do contraste, que afeta a forma como vemos a diferença entre duas coisas quando apresentadas uma após a outra. Em suma, se o segundo item for razoavelmente diferente do primeiro, é grande a probabilidade de vê-lo como mais diferente do que de fato é.

In the, Dei Verbum, there is a great statement of Vatican II: The bible is the word of god but in the words of men.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

Sometimes, when I am reading, the way a person has phrased his truth is as important to me as the truth itself. The wording is like a powerful painting that I would like to put on the wall. I want to share the statement with other people, not just for its truth, but also because the way it is worded somehow has a special meaning for me.

Sometimes, when I am reading, the way a person has phrased his truth is as important to me as the truth itself.

The will to insist upon a definite, unimpeachable reading of an incident - which might well have been read in other, more generous ways - was a mark of a bewildering denial: a denial of the imagination that, liberated to do its proper work, can lead us in alternative directions.

The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression. The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality.

The realist sees reality as concrete. The optimist sees reality as clay.

Two people can have a middling day, but one rounds up and the other rounds down.

The aphorist sees in every truth a wise saying, and in every contradiction, two wise sayings.

If we would listen to our kids, we'd discover that they are largely self-explanatory.

An optimist is someone who figures that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's the bluebird of happiness.

The first assumption of an art critic is that the artist meant to paint something else.

I'm right-handed, whereas the fellow in my mirror is left-handed. I start shaving from the left; he starts from the right. Differences only in perception, but religious wars have been fought over such.

An art critic is someone who appreciates art, except for any particular piece of art.

History is man's best guess as to what the past would look like if everything had happened in chronological order.