“The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.”
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
Letter to William James (8 January 1909)
Source: Infinite Jest
“The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.”
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist
Letter to William James (8 January 1909)
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Source: Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 18, 1891)
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist
Source: Queen of Dreams
Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions
Source: Strong Opinions (1973), p. 45
Context: To be quite candid — and what I am going to say now is something I have never said before, and I hope that it provokes a salutary chill — I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.
John Holt (1923–1985) educator
Growing Without Schooling magazine, no. 40 (1984).
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader
Narada Bhakti Sutras (2001)
Context: A million words cannot express what a glance can convey, and a million glances cannot express what a moment of silence can. A moment of silence conveys so much more than any other expression. Still, love is beyond silence too. You can describe silence to some extent, but that which is beyond silence cannot be expressed. You give, you hug... but still something remains unexpressed.
Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary
Express Yourself Fully (page 8)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)
David Goldblatt (1930–2018) South African photographer
In an interview, c. 2005, with photo historian Mark Haworth-Booth, as quoted in "The Camera Is Not a Machine Gun" http://designobserver.com/article.php?id=10557, Fred Ritchin, 1998
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer
Poetic Manifesto, published in the Texas Quarterly (Winter 1961)