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Interpretation Quotes

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Interpretation Quotes

“The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions.”

LifePoliticalUnderstandingNiceConditionsInspireMethodInstrumentsInsightSubtleInterpretationPolitical Science
Book:The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson: College and state, educational, literary and political papers (1875-1913)
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“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

FactsLyingEnjoyOpinionEnemySubjectsComfortTruth IsMythInterpretationDeliberatePersistentDiscomfortClichePersuasiveHold Fast
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.”

WorldHumansMadeMomentsFactsPurposeNaturalDependsJudgmentImportanceHistoricalDataInterpretationNatural WorldHuman SocietyInterpreterHistorical Knowledge
Book:Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World
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“There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul.”

PersonsSoulSelfSeemsFriendshipDearBelovedInterpretationExpansionBest FriendMy FriendshipFriends ForeverAbout FriendshipFriendship MemoriesDear FriendOne Line FriendshipBest FriendshipFriendship DayFemale FriendshipOne FriendBeautiful FriendshipBeing A Good FriendThat One FriendAngel FriendshipBeloved FriendsMeaning Of Friendship
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)
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“There's the ambiguity of human relationships, for instance. A relationship between two people, just like a sequence of words, is ambiguous if it is open to different interpretations. And if two people do have differing views about their relationship - I don't just mean about its state, I mean about its very nature - then that difference can affect the entire course of their lives.”

PeopleIfsHumansMeanTwoDifferentStatesCoursesDifferencesViewsInstanceInterpretationSequenceAmbiguityHuman RelationshipsAmbiguousDifferent InterpretationsDiffering Views
Author:Elliot Perlman
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“According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.”

IfsWorldShouldBelieveEndsFactsGovernmentWould BeJesusCommonHalfMoralGoneImagineReturnIntellectualConsequencePopulationSignificantGloriousInterpretationBiblicalProphecyComponentsEmergencies
Author:Sam Harris
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“The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, and religious scripture a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.”

InspirationalHumansStillsMatterSpiritualReligionReligiousAtheismExpressionProductsWeaknessAtheistScriptureCollectionsSubtleInterpretationLegendsWord Of GodPrimitiveNeverthelessThere Is No GodAtheisticTheistThere Being No GodGod And ScienceScience GodSubtle Atheist
Author:Albert Einstein
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“Carmelia Montiel, a twenty-year-old virgin, had just bathed in orange-blossom water and was strewing rosemary leaves on Pilar Ternera's bed when the shot rang out. Aureliano José had been destined to find with her the happiness that Amaranta had denied him, to have seven children, and to die in her arms of old age, but the bullet that entered his back and shattered his chest had been directed by a wrong interpretation of the cards.”

YearsChildrenAgeDiesWaterArmsBedShotsTwentiesSevenOld AgeCardsInterpretationChestsDeniedBulletsVirginsOrangeDestinedShatteredOne Hundred Years Of SolitudeRosemary
Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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“Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge....wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. Just because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon was unworthy of it.”

WayLongSometimesMatterGirlBeliefPoorWonderClearSkyLandMissingSweetOughtShapesStartingConclusionMortalsReasoningInterpretationNow And ThenLong WayUnworthyArdentLoopsProceedingHasty
Author:George Eliot
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“Because you have seen something doesn't mean you can explain it. Differing interpretations will always abound, even when good minds come to bear. The kernel of indisputable information is a dot in space; interpretations grow out of the desire to make this point a line, to give it direction. The directions in which it can be sent, the uses to which it can be put by a culturally, professionally, and geographically diverse society are almost without limit. The possibilities make good scientists chary.”

GivingMindMeanUseDesireGrowsLinesSpaceInformationPossibilityBearsLimitsScientistInterpretationDiverseDotsKernelGood MindDiverse Society
Book:Arctic Dreams
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“Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”

ArtTodayCultureEnergyIndustryProjectsHeavyIntellectRevengeSensualAtmospherePoisonInterpretationExpensesCapabilitySensibilityUrbanAutomobileDilemmaReactionariesStifling
Book:A Susan Sontag reader
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“Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.”

WorldBelieveHumansMadeWarWould BeFilmPoliticalCertainReligionStarsHuman BeingsMillionsImagineGenerationsAtheismWindowMurderAtheistRidiculousInterpretationSoftwareRivalsDescendants
Author:Sam Harris
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“All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.”

MenHumansStatesProblemDreamRealityPurposeUniverseNaturalHuman BeingsAnimalExistenceFictionMoralCasesOur LivesImpossibleSpeciesObservationAwakeCyclesInterpretationAbandonedFinite
Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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“As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.”

MenGivingBelieveHeartTwoReasonForceCasesGreaterMysteryLogicMythSuitsExcitementDullInterpretationLegendsIncidentsPlausibleEnigmaInsignificance
Author:Bryce Courtenay
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“Sometimes you read a passage by a great writer, and you know what he says and how he says it will always be, for you, the only possible way it could be. Less often a painter will describe an event in a way that fits into your interpretation of that event so perfectly that it becomes the event itself.”

KnowsWaySometimesEventsFitPainterInterpretationPassagesGreat Writers
Book:I like what I know: a visual autobiography
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“Coldplay songs deliver an amorphous, irrefutable interpretation of how being in love is supposed to feel, and people find themselves wanting that feeling for real. They want men to adore them like Lloyd Dobler would, and they want women to think like Aimee Mann, and they expect all their arguments to sound like Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. They think everything will work out perfectly in the end (just like it did for Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Nick Hornby's Rob Fleming), and they don't stop believing because Journey's Steve Perry insists we should never do that.”

PeopleThinkingMenWantFeelsShouldBelieveRealEndsFeelingsSongSoundLove IsJourneyArgumentWork OutInterpretationAdoreChamberBeing In LoveHelenBridget JonesDon't Stop BelievingEverything Will Work Out
Book:Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
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“I think too many people presume to read the divine Scriptures and fall into such terrors as this,' said Patricius sternly. 'Those who presume on their learning will learn, I trust, to listen to their priests for the true interpretations.' The Merlin smiled gently. 'I cannot join you in that wish, brother. I am dedicated to the belief that it is God's will that all men should strive for wisdom in themselves, not look to it from some other. Babes, perhaps, must have their food chewed for them by a nurse, but men may drink and eat of wisdom for themselves.”

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Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley
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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.”

MenWorldMindWellsMatterScienceUniverseAchieveOne DayRemainsPhysicsInterpretationRealisingInclusionWholenessInteriorsExterior
Author:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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“I have decided to leave Clea’s last letter un-answered. I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants. It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires, to come to me if she has need or not, as the case may be. Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”

IfsThinkingNeedsMayDoeLastsDesireWishTermSilenceCasesDependsPromiseLettersDecidedInterpretationResolutionCovenantCoerce
Book:The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
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“It's why I get miffed at all the dashing around in recent zombie films. It completely misses the point; transforms the threat to a straightforward physical danger from the zombies themselves, rather than our own inability to avoid them and these films are about us, not them. There's far more meat on the bones of the latter, far more juicy interpretation to get our teeth into. The first zombie is by comparison thin and one dimensional and ironically, it is down to all the exercise.”

FirstsFilmMissingDangerExerciseThreatBonesTeethMeatLatterComparisonInterpretationInabilityZombieStraightforwardJuicyDashing
Author:Simon Pegg
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“Language can't describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each reader's interpretation is equally valid, more important than the author's intention. In fact, nothing in life has meaning. Reality is subjective. Values and truths are subjective. Life itself is a kind of illusion. Blah, blah, blah, let's have another scotch.”

KindImportantRealFactsRealityValuesLiteratureLanguageReaderIllusionIntentionInterpretationStableSubjectiveScotchBlah
Author:Dean Koontz
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“How do you feel?” she asked, trying to fluff his pillow. “Other than terrible, I mean.” He moved his head slightly to the side. It seemed to be a sickly interpretation of a shrug. “Of course you’re feeling terrible,” she clarified, “but is there any change? More terrible? Less terrible?” He made no response. “The same amount of terrible?”

FeelsTryingMeanMadeFeelingsCoursesSidesAmountTerribleMovedResponseInterpretationPillowFluffNo Response
Author:Julia Quinn
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“Satanism advocates practicing a modified form of the Golden Rule. Our interpretation of this rule is: "Do unto others as they do unto you"; because if you "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and they, in turn, treat you badly, it goes against human nature to continue to treat them with consideration. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but if your courtesy is not returned, they should be treated with the wrath they deserve.”

IfsShouldHumansFormTurnsHuman NatureDeserveTreatsTreatedGoldenConsiderationInterpretationWrathCourtesyGolden RuleSatanicDo Unto OthersSatanismSatanist
Author:Anton Szandor LaVey
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