Literature Quotes

"Literature teaches us through particularity, not generality."

"Stories engage our understanding through narrative structure."

"Language shapes what we can think and express."

"The boundaries of our language are the boundaries of our world."

"No natural history can be interpreted as anything but a narrative."

"Literature preserves the thoughts we need when we least expect to need them."

"Language shapes thought as much as thought shapes language."

"We may be able to discover much that the author did not intend or know when we read his work in a new way."

"One should continue reading old books."

"We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry."

"Literature is a window into the human soul."

"Literature teaches us to see through the eyes of others."

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits."

"Literary expression and mathematical expression share deep similarities."

"The person who reads lives a thousand lives before he dies."

"The greatest literature captures truths that transcend language itself."

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it is the exact opposite."

"A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons."

"Literature mirrors the human soul more truly than any scientific instrument."

"Literature preserves the wisdom of the past and projects the possibilities of the future."

"Literature preserves the soul of a civilization."

"Books must be read as deliberately and slowly as they were written."

"Poetry is the most direct mode of communication between souls."

"Literature holds up a mirror to the human soul."

"Language disguises the thoughts; so that from the external form of the clothes it is impossible to infer the form of the thought they clothe."

"The meaning of a word lies not in its image but in its use within a system."

"The proper study of language requires distinguishing between grammar and logic."

"The richness of language allows for subtleties that logic must carefully disentangle."

"Language is both the vehicle and the obstacle in the pursuit of knowledge."

"The sense of a sentence is the thought it expresses; the reference is its truth value."