“If anything is well taught—I will take Latin for example—a boy is easily led to see, indeed he cannot help seeing, certain resemblances in words. The first part of words may differ from one another, but the tails or endings may be the same; and a boy easily learns to observe these like endings and to see also that they add to or qualify the meaning of the words to which they are attached. This fact appears in our own language, and the observation of likeness and unlikeness of this kind may be taught in the humblest schools. It is a very potent method of forming boys to observe, to distinguish and to classify.”

— George Long

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

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George Long 66

English classical scholar 1800–1879

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“The end may be defined as life in accordance with nature or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe.”

Zeno of Citium (-334–-263 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers: 'Zeno', 7.87.
The "end" here means “the goal of life.”

“The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now."”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

"The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing but the Tooth", in Love Conquers All (1922)
Context: The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on?" That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities.

“While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis and do things. I took lessons from a Japanese man every day for an hour.
One day he was teaching me the word for "see." "All right," he said. "You want to say, 'May I see your garden?' What do you say?"
I made up a sentence with the word that I had just learned.
"No, no!" he said. "When you say to someone, 'Would you like to see my garden?' you use the first 'see.' But when you want to see someone else's garden, you must use another 'see,' which is more polite."
"Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?" is essentially what you're saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella's garden, you have to say something like, "May I observe your gorgeous garden?" So there's two different words you have to use.
Then he gave me another one: "You go to a temple, and you want to look at the gardens…"
I made up a sentence, this time with the polite "see."
"No, no!" he said. "In the temple, the gardens are much more elegant. So you have to say something that would be equivalent to 'May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?"
Three or four different words for one idea, because when I'm doing it, it's miserable; when you're doing it, it's elegant.
I was learning Japanese mainly for technical things, so I decided to check if this same problem existed among the scientists.
At the institute the next day, I said to the guys in the office, "How would I say in Japanese, 'I solve the Dirac Equation'?"
They said such-and-so.
"OK. Now I want to say, 'Would you solve the Dirac Equation?'”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

how do I say that?"
"Well, you have to use a different word for 'solve,' " they say.
"Why?" I protested. "When I solve it, I do the same damn thing as when you solve it!"
"Well, yes, but it's a different word — it's more polite."
I gave up. I decided that wasn't the language for me, and stopped learning Japanese.
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "Would <U>You</U> Solve the Dirac Equation?", p. 245-246
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“The suggestion that words are symbols for things, actions, qualities, relationships, et cetera, is naive, a gross simplification. Words are slippery customers. The full meaning of a word does not appear until it is placed in its context, and the context may serve an extremely subtle function -- as with puns, or double entendre. And even then the "meaning" will depend upon the listener, upon the speaker, upon their entire experience of language, upon their knowledge of one another, and upon the whole situation. Words do not "mean things" in a one-to-one relation like a code. Words, too, are empirical signs, not copies or models of anything; truly, onomatopoeia and gestures frequently seem to possess resemblance, but this resemblance does not bear too close examination. A cockerel may seem to say cook-a-doodle-do to an Englishman, but a German thinks it says kikeriki, and a Japanese kokke-kekko. Each can paint only with the phonetic sound of his own language.”

Colin Cherry (1914–1979) British scientist

Source: On Human Communication (1957), What Is It That We Communicate?, p. 10-11

“"The parts I like, well…" He shook his head, with pursed lips. "They just don't have anything to do with me: somebody else wrote them, it seems, about things I may have thought about once. The parts I don't like--well, I can remember writing those, oh yeah, word by word by word."”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Part IV, "In Time of Plague" (p. 357)
Dhalgren (1975)

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

“Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 224.
The Tatler (1711–1714)

“Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words.
You say: The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 120
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“A writer may use different terms to mean the same thing, in order to avoid a monotonous repetition of the same word. Common, vague words may be employed in order that the common people may understand; and sometimes a writer sacrifices perfect accuracy in the interest of a clear general statement. Poetical, figurative language is often obscure and vague.”

Peter Abelard Sic et Non

Prologue as translated in Readings in European History, Vol. I (1904) edited by James Harvey Robinson, p. 450
Sic et Non (1120)
Context: There are many seeming contradictions and even obscurities in the innumerable writings of the church fathers. Our respect for their authority should not stand in the way of an effort on our part to come at the truth. The obscurity and contradictions in ancient writings may be explained upon many grounds, and may be discussed without impugning the good faith and insight of the fathers. A writer may use different terms to mean the same thing, in order to avoid a monotonous repetition of the same word. Common, vague words may be employed in order that the common people may understand; and sometimes a writer sacrifices perfect accuracy in the interest of a clear general statement. Poetical, figurative language is often obscure and vague.
Not infrequently apocryphal works are attributed to the saints. Then, even the best authors often introduce the erroneous views of others and leave the reader to distinguish between the true and the false. Sometimes, as Augustine confesses in his own case, the fathers ventured to rely upon the opinions of others.

“The best part of our misfortunes - our moral unhappiness, I mean - comes from the fact that we have words to describe them… We give them body, we even go so far as to give them a body which is not their own, for the words of common language do not always correspond to our sufferings, which may be of a new and distinct sort. … And then, too, words prolong and preserve sorrows that should long have been forgotten. Animal nature forgets….”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

A Time for Silence

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George Long 66

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