“No one reads; if someone does read, he doesn't understand; if he understands, he immediately forgets.”

— Stanisław Lem

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Stanisław Lem 74

Polish science fiction author 1921–2006

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The Poets"
The Poets And The Prophet (2006)

“If someone tells you he is going to make "a realistic decision," you immediately understand that he has resolved to do something bad.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"The American Realist Playwrights", p. 296. First published in Harper's Magazine (July 1961)
On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

“Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living

“Reading a poem aloud by someone who understands it, can be a crucial experience, but better yet is reading it aloud oneself.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

“I read once that the true mark of a pro — at anything — is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.”

Paul R. Halmos (1916–2006) American mathematician

I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)

“He read at wine, he read in bed, He read aloud, had he the breath, His every thought was with the dead, And so he read himself to death.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

"Tarquin of Cheapside"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

“He doesn't understand from where the shot has come. He has never confronted a living Sophist. Only dead ones.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30
Context: No one sees it yet, but they will soon enough. The Chairman of the Committee on Analysis of Ideas and Study of Methods has just been shot down in his own classroom.
Now he is speechless. He can't think of a word to say. The silence which so built his image at the beginning of the class is now destroying it. He doesn't understand from where the shot has come. He has never confronted a living Sophist. Only dead ones.