“A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.”

Definitions, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

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 "A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words." by Samuel Butler?
Samuel Butler photo
Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

Related quotes

“Wilderness. The word itself is music.”

Source: Desert Solitaire

Dorothy Parker photo

“The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
Nikos Kazantzakis photo

“Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force.”

"Massacre", Ch. 10, p. 88
Report to Greco (1965)
Context: Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover its meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons.

“If the national park idea is the best idea America ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea.”

Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) American historian, writer, and environmentalist

It All Began with Conservation Smithsonian magazine, April 1990, pages 35-43

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

"Shadows from the Big Woods", p. 223
The Journey Home (1977)

Rudolf Rocker photo

“Anarchism recognises only the relative significance of ideas, institutions, and social conditions. It is, therefore not a fixed, self enclosed social system, but rather a definite trend in the historical development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life.”

Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 1 "Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes"
Context: Anarchism recognises only the relative significance of ideas, institutions, and social conditions. It is, therefore not a fixed, self enclosed social system, but rather a definite trend in the historical development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to broaden its scope and to affect wider circles in manifold ways. For the Anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all capacities and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is interfered with by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown.

Samuel Butler photo

“The mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed articulately in words involves that it is still open to question; and the mere fact that a difficulty can be definitely conceived involves that it is open to solution.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Thought and Word, iv
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

Related topics