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Quote by William Empson

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Seven Types of Ambiguity

This book delves into the multifaceted nature of ambiguity, examining its presence and impact in different areas of human thought and expression. more

Author

William Empson
William Empson

William Empson was a British literary critic born on September 27, 1906, and died on April 15, 1984. His work is known for its unique literary analysis and profound philosophical insights. more

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“From the geyser ventilators autumn winds are blowing down on a thousand business women having baths in Camden Town. Waste pipes chuckle into runnels, steam's escaping here and there, morning trains through Camden cutting shake the Crescent and the Square. Early nip of changeful autumn, dahlias glimpsed through garden doves, at the back precarious bathrooms jutting out from upper floors; and behind their frail partitions business women lie and soak, seeing through the draughty skylight flying clouds and railway smoke. Rest you there, poor unbeloved ones, lap your loneliness in heat. All too soon the tiny breakfast, trolley-bus and windy street!”

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“[T]he enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has splintered them away from other Americans. This fracture comes with a steep price: in today's toxic atmosphere, liberals are no less cynical, shortsighted, and parochial than anyone else, and they understand their fellow-Americans just as badly as they themselves are understood. When liberals look at red-state voters, they see either a mob of pious know-nothings or the insensible victims of militarism and class warfare. Yet.... [such people] defy fixed categories, which means that they have to be figured out the hard way--on their own terms.”

PoliticsUnderstandingCynicismPolitical PartiesStereotypesWar On TerrorAmericans9 11LiberalsParochialism9 11 10th AnniversaryShortsightednessRifts
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“A Yorkshireman in the South will always take care to let you know that he regards you as an inferior. If you ask him why, he will explain that it is only in the North that life is 'real' life, that the industrial work done in the North is the only 'real' work, that the North is inhabited by 'real' people, the South merely by rentiers and their parasites. The Northerner has 'grit', he is grim, 'dour', plucky, warm-hearted and democratic; the Southerner is snobbish, effeminate and lazy - that at any rate is the theory. Hence the Southerner goes north, at any rate for the first time, with the vague inferiority-complex of a civilized man venturing among savages, while the Yorkshireman, like the Scotchman, comes to London in the spirit of a barbarian out for loot.”

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“The four examples above - the term villain, the Indian caste system, national image, and a historical period - differ in their parameters of analysis. Yet, they all suffered conscious and systematic degradation of meaning and image in some aspects. Villain is a word that has suffered etymological deterioration. The Vaishyas and the Shudras in the Indian caste system systematically lost their equal stature to the Brahman and the Kshatriya classes. Similarly, while some countries such as Iraq and North Korea were subject to deliberate attempts of defamation by developed nations, the bright sides of the Dark Ages in Europe remain unacknowledged.”

VillainsParochialismVillains And HeroesEtymological Roots
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