“We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.”
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) American linguist
Source: Language, thought and reality (1956), p. 213.
“Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;
—We murder to dissect.”
— William Wordsworth, book Lyrical Ballads
Source: Lyrical Ballads
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;
—We murder to di…" by William Wordsworth?
William Wordsworth306
English Romantic poet 1770–1850Related quotes
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Context: Science has been advancing without interruption during the last three of four hundred years; every new discovery has led to new problems and new methods of solution, and opened up new fields for exploration. Hitherto men of science have not been compelled to halt, they have always found ways to advance further. But what assurance have we that they will not come up against impassable barriers?... Take biology or astronomy. How can we be sure that some day progress may not come to a dead pause, not because knowledge is exhausted, but because our resources for investigation are exhausted... It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass.
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As quoted by Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (1972)
John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer
Works (1844) edited by the Calvin translation society, as quoted in Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction for Believers (1991) by Howard L. Rice, p. 59.
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
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Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer
Beckmann's lecture 'Drei Briefe an eine Malerin' ('Three letters to a Woman-painter'), New York and Boston, Spring 1948; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 214
1940s
Melissa Lucashenko (1967) Australian writer
On aboriginal lore in “The interview: Melissa Lucashenko” https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-interview-melissa-lucashenko-20130306-2flr6.html in The Sydney Morning Herald (2013 Mar 9)
