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In the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded as standing, rather inadequately, for things and events; on the contrary, things and ...more

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Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words t...more

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Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

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Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born.

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For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.

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We float in language like icebergs – four-fifths under the surface and only one-fifth of us projecting into the open air of immediate, non-linguistic ...more

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Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.

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The strange words rolled through his mind; rumbled, like talking thunder; like the drums at the summer dances, if the drums could have spoken; like th...more

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To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funnelled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at ...more

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What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happ...more