“A poet's work… to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A poet's work… to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it f…" by Salman Rushdie?
Salman Rushdie photo
Salman Rushdie 122
British Indian novelist and essayist 1947

Related quotes

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“To one unnamed, whose name will one day be named, is dedicated, with this little work, the entire authorship, as it was from the beginning. (Dedication) P. 163”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1850s, Two Discourses at Friday Communion (August 1851)

Bobby Hull photo

“I think for kids it's the most important part of the game. You have to be able to skate forward and backward, stop and start, go from side to side. Those are the basics of the game.”

Bobby Hull (1939) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Andrew Podnieks, "One on One with Bobby Hull," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198302.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2001-12-11)
Hull comments on his belief that the most fundamental aspect of ice hockey is skating.

Leonard Bernstein photo

“Music… can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
Laozi photo

“The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.”

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1, as interpreted by Ursula K. LeGuin (1998)
Context: The way you can go
isn't the real way.
The name you can say
isn't the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things.
So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.
Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Laozi photo

“The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real.”

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 1, as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell (1992)
Context: The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

“The world is changing…. I don't, as a consumer, want advertising that's not relevant. If we're going to take a side let's take the side of the consumer.”

Charlie Ergen (1953) American businessman

Interview with CNBC's Julia Boostin http://www.cnbc.com/id/100451269 (1995)

Frédéric Bazille photo

“I have started a large landscape which is beginning to take shape.”

Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) French painter

Quote in Bazille's letter to his father, June 1870; as cited in Impressionnism, Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994, p. 338
1866 - 1870

“Hunter couldn't stop working. McCumber remembered Hunter working nine days without sleep.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 16, The Genetic Miracle, p. 302

Haruki Murakami photo

Related topics