Interpretation Quotes

• All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

  George Eliot

  Keys, Mystery, Wonder

  George Eliot (2006). “Daniel Deronda Volume I EasyRead Edition”, p.82, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The past is an interpretation. The future is on illusion. The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead, time moves through and within us, in endless spirals. Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness. If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

  Shams Tabrizi

  Moving, Mean, Past

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• We should know what our convictions are, and stand for them. Upon one's own philosophy, conscious or unconscious, depends one's ultimate interpretation of facts. Therefore it is wise to be as clear as possible about one's subjective principles. As the man is, so will be his ultimate truth.

  Carl Jung

  Wise, Truth, Philosophy

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• Make a mistake in the interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s plays, falsely scan a piece of Spenserian verse, and there is unlikely to be an entailment of eternal consequence; but we cannot lightly accept a similar laxity in the interpretation of Scripture. We are dealing with God’s thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.

  D. A. Carson

  Pain, Mistake, Play

  D. A. Carson (1996). “Exegetical Fallacies”, p.9, Baker Books

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• It is very obvious that we are not influenced by "facts"
  but by our interpretation of the facts.

  Alfred Adler

  Facts, Obvious

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• All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.

  Aldo Leopold

  Team, Men, Land

  "A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There". Book by Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic", p. 203-204, 1949.

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• I study history in order to give an interpretation.

  Oliver Stone

  Order, Giving, Study

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• Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.

  Henning Mankell

  Mistake, Information Knowledge, People

  FaceBook post by Henning Mankell from Oct 03, 2012

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• The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

  Sigmund Freud

  Dream, Science, Collective Unconscious

  The Interpretation of Dreams ch. 7 (1900)

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• It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and to seek for an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Agreement, Umpires, Arguing

  Paul Ricoeur (2016). “Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences”, p.175, Cambridge University Press

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• The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

  Elliot W. Eisner

  Art, Perspective, World

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• I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Beauty, Patience, Understanding

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• The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world.

  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

  Science, Men, Mind

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• All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

  Walter Benjamin

  Intelligence, Form, Humans

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• We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time.

  William J. Brennan

  Mean, Looks, Ultimate Questions

  "The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification" (speech),Washington, D.C., 12 Oct. 1985

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• Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of ''meanings.''

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Revenge, Order

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• There are no facts, only interpretations.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Encouraging, Witty, Truth

  Notebooks, Summer 1886 - Fall 1887.

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• All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Power, Reality, Political

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• Less information often leads to more interpretation.

  John Paul Caponigro

  Information

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• The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.

  Jean Genet

  Men, Revolution, Rebellious

  Jean Genet (2003). “Prisoner of Love”, New York Review of Books

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• What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?

  Antonin Scalia

  Motivational, Mean, Halfway

  "Antonin Scalia's legacy: Extraordinary writing, and upholding the rule of law" by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, theweek.com. February 13, 2016.

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• Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Powerful, Communication

  Ansel Adams, Edwin Herbert Land (1974). “Singular images”, Morgan & Morgan, Inc.

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• I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is

  Erykah Badu

  Fun, Listeners

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• Scientific discovery consists in the interpretation for our own convenience of a system of existence which has been made with no eye to our convenience at all.

  Norbert Wiener

  Eye, Science, Discovery

  The Human Use of Human Beings ch. 7 (1949)

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• I will come out with my interpretation. If I'm wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take.

  Oliver Stone

  Giving, Give And Take, Fine

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