Reinterpretation Quotes

• Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Motivation, Ideas, Progress

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.142, Open Road Media

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• Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

  Denzel Washington

  Pieces, Materials, Ought

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• I am always a different man; a reinterpretation of the man I was yesterday.

  K. J. Bishop

  Men, Yesterday, Different

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• Equally, we require a collective past - hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present.

  Penelope Lively

  Past, Perception, Suits

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• What we require is not a formal return to tradition and religion, but a rereading, a reinterpretation, of our history that can illuminate the present and pave the way to a better future. For example, if we delve more deeply into ancient Egyptian and African civilisations we will discover the humanistic elements that were prevalent in many areas of life. Women enjoyed a high status and rights, which they later lost when class patriarchal society became the prevalent social system.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Class, Rights, Way

  Nawal El Saadawi (1997). “The Nawal El Saadawi Reader”, Zed Books

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• In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can't take positions that are closed. Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it, to open doors, sometimes, not even closing the book -- leaving the endings open for reinterpretation, revisitation, a little ambiguity.

  Toni Morrison

  Book, Writing, Doors

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• The reinterpretation and eventual eradication of the concept of right and wrong are that belated objectives of nearly all Psychotherapy

  Brock Chisholm

  Belated, Psychotherapy, Objectives

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• I don't like to use the word 'remake', I think reinterpretation is a better word. It's just a matter of respecting the source, and then trying to make your own film, and trying not to be inhibited by being so beholden to every single thing... We respect the source, but we make changes to it.

  Spike Lee

  Thinking, Trying, Use

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• No experimental result can ever kill a theory: any theory can be saved from counterinstances either by some auxiliary hypothesis or by a suitable reinterpretation of its terms.

  Imre Lakatos

  Science, Results, Theory

  Imre Lakatos, John Worrall, Gregory Currie (1980). “The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

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• Pascal in his bitter rendition of the practices of the Jesuit intellectuals he despised, including their demonstration of "the utility of interpretation," a device of manufacturing consent based on reinterpretation of sacred texts to serve wealth, power, and privilege.

  Noam Chomsky

  Practice, Sacred, Privilege

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

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• Maya Jasanoff's Liberty's Exiles places the loyalist experience and the aftermath of the American Revolution in an entirely new light. Alongside the Spirit of 1776, Jasanoff gives us the Spirit of 1783, dedicated to remaking the mighty British Empire, and then offers a stunning reinterpretation of the Loyalists' complicated role in that remaking. Her meticulously researched and superbly written account is historical revision at its finest, and it affirms her place as one of the very finest historians of the rising generation.

  Sean Wilentz

  Light, Giving, Historical

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• Science fiction that's just about people wandering around in space ships shooting each other with ray guns is very dull. I like it when it enables you to do fairly radical reinterpretations of human experience, just to show all the different interpretations that can be put on apparently fairly simple and commonplace events. That I find fun.

  Douglas Adams

  Fun, Gun, Simple

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