IQ84 (2009-2010)
Variant: It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.
Source: 1Q84
“Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you've lost forever. There is only now.”
Variant: every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost for ever. There's only now.
Source: The Passion
“If a hint is not taken, if a word is missed, it is lost forever; for He does not speak twice.”
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: These are not my words; they are the words of the Master who taught me. Without Him I could have done nothing, but through His help I have set my feet upon the Path. You also desire to enter the same Path, so the words which He spoke to me will help you also, if you will obey them. It is not enough to say that they are true and beautiful; a man who wishes to succeed must do exactly what is said. To look at food and say that it is good will not satisfy a starving man; he must put forth his hand and eat. So to hear the Master's words is not enough, you must do what He says, attending to every word, taking every hint. If a hint is not taken, if a word is missed, it is lost forever; for He does not speak twice.
Four qualifications there are for this pathway:
“At certain moments, words are nothing; it is the tone in which they are uttered.”
A de certaines minutes, les mots ne sont rien, c’est le ton qui est tout.
Source: Cosmopolis (1892), Ch. 5 "Countess Steno"
“My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.”
Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare
Ethics (1677)
§ 43, this has often been quoted as simply: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Philosophical Investigations (1953)
Source: George L. K. Morris, Willem De Kooning, Alexander Calder, Fritz Glarner, Robert Motherwell, Stuart Davis. " What Abstract Art Means to Me http://www.jstor.org/stable/4058250," in: The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. 18, No. 3, (Spring, 1951), pp. 2-15
“Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. ”
