“The category of first sentence makes sense only if it is looking forward to the development of thematic concerns it perhaps only dimly foreshadows.”

—  Stanley Fish

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 8, First Sentences, p. 99

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The category of first sentence makes sense only if it is looking forward to the development of thematic concerns it per…" by Stanley Fish?
Stanley Fish photo
Stanley Fish18
American academic 1938

Related quotes

“Logic is not concerned with human behavior in the same sense that physiology, psychology, and social sciences are concerned with it. These sciences formulate laws or universal statements which have as their subject matter human activities as processes in time. Logic, on the contrary, is concerned with relations between factual sentences (or thoughts). If logic ever discusses the truth of factual sentences it does so only conditionally, somewhat as follows: if such-and-such a sentence is true, then such-and-such another sentence is true. Logic itself does not decide whether the first sentence is true, but surrenders that question to one or the other of the empirical sciences.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Rudolf Carnap (1937) cited in: Irving J. Lee (1967) The Language of Wisdom and Folly: Background Readings in Semantics. International Society for General Semantics, p. 44

Jean Rhys photo

“For the first time she had dimly realized that only the hopeless are starkly sincere and that only the unhappy can either give or take sympathy--even some of the bitter and dangerous voluptuousness of misery.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Craig Ferguson photo

“[referring to a category of people he might have upset with a joke] I'm looking forward to your letters…”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), Commonly repeated

William James photo

“No particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation, is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of looking away from first things, principles, 'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture II, What Pragmatism Means
1900s, Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

“Where humans are concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure…”

Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance

Source: A Fine Balance

Barry Eichengreen photo

“This history of the international monetary system is short in two senses of the word. First, I concentrate on a short period: the century and a half from 1850 to today. Many of the developments I describe have roots in earlier eras, but to draw out their implications I need only consider this relatively short time span. Second, I have sought to write a short book emphasizing thematic material rather than describing international monetary arrangements in exhaustive detail.”

Barry Eichengreen (1952) Economist

Preface
Globalizing Capital (2008)

James Branch Cabell photo

“That was why all art, which strove to make the sensations of a moment soul-satisfying, was dimly felt to be irreligious. For art performed what religion only promised.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 26 : "Epper Si Muove"
Context: To-day alone was real. Never was man brought into contact with reality save through the evanescent emotions and sensations of that single moment, that infinitesimal fraction of a second, which was passing now — and it was in the insignificance of this moment, precisely, that religious persons must believe. So ran the teachings of all dead and lingering faiths alike. Here was, perhaps, only another instance of mankind's abhorrence of actualities; and man's quaint dislike of facing reality was here disguised as a high moral principle. That was why all art, which strove to make the sensations of a moment soul-satisfying, was dimly felt to be irreligious. For art performed what religion only promised.

Larry Niven photo

“It had been a long dull evening, with only the thought of leaving the party early to look forward to.”

Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye

Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 51 “After the Ball Is Over” (p. 491)

Related topics