
“If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
“If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry.”
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
June 1987[citation needed]
Philosophy
“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)
Source: The Society of Mind (1987), Ch.2
Context: Questions about arts, traits, and styles of life are actually quite technical. They ask us to explain what happens among the agents of our minds. But this is a subject about which we have never learned very much... Such questions will be answered in time. But it will just prolong the wait if we keep using pseudo-explanation words like "holistic" and "gestalt." …It's harmful, when naming leads the mind to think that names alone bring meaning close.
Montgomery, David. Thune, Noem want answers on Libya http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_57540f4e-562d-11e0-9f87-001cc4c03286.html, Rapid City Journal. March 24, 2011.
Source: 1920s, "Picasso Speaks" (1923), p. 391.