“Both in verse and in prose [Karl] Shapiro loves, partly out of indignation and partly out of sheer mischievousness, to tell the naked truths or half-truths or quarter-truths that will make anybody’s hair stand on end; he is always crying: “But he hasn’t any clothes on!” about an emperor who is half the time surprisingly well-dressed.”
“Fifty Years of American Poetry”, p. 331
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)
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Randall Jarrell 215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965Related quotes
“It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie.”
Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 13, “Autumn Leaves” (p. 277)
“Love is not always evil, truth to tell;
Though harm he does, he serves the good as well.”
Dunque Amor sempre rio non si ritrova:
Se spesso nuoce, anco talvolta giova.
Canto XXV, stanza 2 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.”
Die Fackel no. 270/71 (19 January 1909)
Die Fackel
The Pilgrim, Chapter 33
Song lyrics, The Silver Tongued Devil and I (1971)
“1200. Craft must have Clothes; but Truth loves to go naked.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
“Man has no nature”
History as a System (1962)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 606.