Quotessence
Home / Authors / David Abram
David Abram

David Abram Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllWorldAbramHumansLanguageBodyAnimalEarthParticularSpeakSpeechAnimismContactDepthEventsFormLandOngoingReciprocitySensorySpiders

Famous David Abram Quotes

“Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient association with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air.”

SpiritSpeakLanguageVoiceWrittenAirWindRiversBreathsAncientInvisibleForestsAssociationFadesAbram
Book:The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World
Create image

“The telling of stories, like singing and praying, would seem to be an almost ceremonial act, an ancient and necessary mode of speech that tends the earthly rootedness of human language. For narrated events always happen somewhere. And for an oral culture, that location is never merely incidental to those occurrences. The events belong, as it were, to the place, and to tell the story of those events is to let the place itself speak through the telling.”

HumansStoriesSeemsHappensEarthCultureSpeakLanguageEventsPrayingSpeechSingingAncientLocationHuman LanguageAbramRootedness
Book:The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World
Create image

“For the Amahuaca, the Koyukon, the Apache, and the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Australia - as for numerous other indigenous peoples - the coherence of human language is inseparable from the coherence of the surrounding ecology, from the expressive vitality of the more-than-human terrain. It is the animate earth that speaks; human speech is but a part of that vaster discourse.”

HumansEarthSpeakLanguageExpressionSpeechAustraliaDiverseEcologyDiscourseVitalityIndigenousInseparableExpressiveTerrainAboriginalCoherenceIndigenous PeopleHuman Language
Book:The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human World
Create image

“In the absence of any written analogue to speech, the sensible, natural environment remains the primary visual counterpart of spoken utterance, the palpable site, or matrix wherein meaning occurs and proliferates. In the absence of writing, we find ourselves situated in the field of discourse as we are embedded in the natural landscape; indeed, the two matrices are not separable. We can no more stabilize the language and render its meanings determinate than we can freeze all motion and metamorphosis within the land.”

WritingTwoLanguageNaturalEnvironmentWrittenLandFieldsSpeechRemainsAbsencePrimariesLandscapeVisualsSensibleSiteDiscourseFreezeEmbeddedUtteranceNatural EnvironmentMetamorphosisCounterpartsAnalogue
Author:David Abram
Create image

“No event for the Koyukon - or for most other indigenous peoples - is ever entirely meaningless or accidental, but neither is any event entirely predetermined or fated. Rather like the trickster, Raven, who first gave it its current form, the sensuous world is a spontaneous, playful and dangerous mystery in which we participate, an articulate and improvisational field of powers ever responsive to human actions and spoken words.”

WorldFirstsHumansActionFormLanguageMysteryDangerousEventsFieldsCurrentsMeaninglessSpontaneousIndigenousSpoken WordRavensIndigenous PeopleSensuousHuman ActionsPredeterminedTricksters
Author:David Abram
Create image