Don't look for the meanings; look for the use.
The fish trap exists because of the fish: once you have gotten the meanings, you can forget the words.
There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are "nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations. " But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my "defense mechanisms," nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my "reaction formations.
Magic is a sudden opening of the mind to the wonder of existence. It is a sense that there is much more to life than we usually recognize; that we do not have to be confined by the limited views that our family, our society, or our own habitual thoughts impose on us; that life contains many dimensions, depths, textures, and meanings extending far beyond our familiar beliefs and concepts.
Change your meanings you alter your destiny. Life does not give us what we want. Life gives us whatever we expect.
There's a certain Slant of light, Winter afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes— Heavenly Hurt, it gives us— We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are. . . . When it comes, the Landscape listens— Shadows—hold their breath— When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death.
It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.
The common-sense notion that 'there is a time and a place for everything' gets carried into a set of prescriptions which replicate the social order by assigning social meanings to spaces and times.
I know you lawyers can with ease, Twist words and meanings as you please; That language, by your skill made pliant, Will bend to favour every client; That 'tis the fee directs the sense, To make out either side's pretense.
Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods.
I like to keep the meanings in my work flowing and open.
It's better for the listener to interpret their own meanings to the music.
We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.
Good has two meanings: it means that which is good absolutely and that which is good for somebody.
One line plus one line results in many meanings.
It's not for me to share the meanings of others. I am only in charge of my own.
Real myths are often strange and startlingly unfamiliar, and don't always give up their meanings easily; you have to tease them out, and for me, that's one of the pleasures of reading older collections of lore.
With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.
In our time, what is at issue is the very nature of man, the image we have of his limits and possibilities as a man. History is not yet done with its exploration of the limits and meanings of human nature.
There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.