“There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic.”

— Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) p. 348 ([10.1093/camqtly/bfs004]).

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Cornelius Castoriadis 6

Greek-French philosopher 1922–1997

Robert D. Richardson (1934) American historian

Emerson: The Mind on Fire (1995)

“Physics is essentially an intuitive and concrete science. Mathematics is only a means for expressing the laws that govern phenomena.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

From Lettre à Maurice Solvine, by A. Einstein (Gauthier-Villars: Paris 1956)
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: A guide for the perplexed (1979)

“Don't lose sight of the essential objectives of painting, which are expression, emotion, delectation; to understand the means, to paint decoratively, to exalt form and color.”

Maurice Denis (1870–1943) French painter

Quote from Denis' Journal, 1930; as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [43]
1921 and later

“The proper mean.”

Louis Philippe I (1773–1850) King of the French

Le juste milieu.
Used in an address to the deputies of Gaillac. First occurs in a letter of Voltaire's to Count d'Argental (Nov. 29, 1765). Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations Also in Pascal—Pensées. (see Moderation)

“The Declaration was essentially an attempt to prove that rebellion was not the proper word for what they were doing.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1922)

“Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

As quoted in Charles Evans Hughes (1951) by Merlo J. Pusey, Vol. II, p. 794
Context: We still proclaim the old ideals of liberty but we cannot voice them without anxiety in our hearts. The question is no longer one of establishing democratic institutions but of preserving them. … The arch enemies of society are those who know better but by indirection, misstatement, understatement, and slander, seek to accomplish their concealed purposes or to gain profit of some sort by misleading the public. The antidote for these poisons must be found in the sincere and courageous efforts of those who would preserve their cherished freedom by a wise and responsible use of it. Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline.

“This is what those who haven’t crossed the tropic of grief often fail to understand: the fact that someone is dead may mean that they are not alive, but doesn’t mean that they do not exist.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

“The potential conflict inherent in every word, and finding expression in the fact that the use of every word is an individual embodiment of a general concept, is the focal point of semantics understood as a part of linguistics — that is as a science of the meanings of words and the history of such meanings”

Witold Doroszewski (1899–1976) Lexicographer and linguist

Witold Doroszewski, Z zagadiiien leksykografii polskiej [Selected Problems of Polish Lexicography], Warszawa 1954, p. 93; as cited in Schaff (1962;6).

“It's precisely the disappointing stories, which have no proper ending and therefore no proper meaning, that sound true to life.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

“Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.”

William Golding (1911–1993) British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

“There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic.”

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Cornelius Castoriadis 6

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