Best 174 quotes in «interpretation quotes» category

We misunderstand the messages behind some of our most favourite songs.

We may like to know the relevance of loyalty in an ever-shifting world and comprehend the essence of "commitment" in a rapidly altering relationship. In a frame of the "easy come easy go syndrome” many interpretations are brought to mind like "It was all a misunderstanding" or "I liked what the other did, but at this moment I must recognize he didn't do what I really do like". ("Was it all worthwhile?")

What if we refused to be railroaded into the false choice between the critical and the uncritical? How might argument and interpretation proceed if critique were no longer our ubiquitous watchword and ever-vigilant watchdog? What other shapes of thought could we imagine? And how else might we venture to read, if we were not ordained to read suspiciously?

When you dream, ask yourself about the energetic as well as the psychological messages.

What you see is highly dependent on how you look.

When trying to interpret any myth, many people reflexively turn to the theories of people like James George Frazer, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Joseph Campbell. While each of those thinkers has developed an intriguing personal philosophy that uses various ancient mythologies as points of reference, their works are dubious guides to any one particular mythology. Their goal is not to understand any one mythology as deeply as possible on its own terms, but rather to identify supposed universal patterns within myth as such, which turns a blind eye toward the factors that make any given mythology unique. These thinkers, while fascinating in their own right, have little to no light to shed on how the Vikings themselves understood their own myths - which is, after all, the kind of interpretation that matters by far the most in a book of this sort.

When the locus of evaluation is seen as residing in the expert, it would appear that the long-range social implications are in the direction of the social control of the many by the few.

When you’ve been given a curse of perspective you don’t stop to consider the gift of oversight that most humans have been bestowed with.

Why do you reduce art to an autobiography? Once a piece of art is concluded and ejected into the world it changes with every single pair of eyes and becomes an endless object of transformation. The spectator makes it his or her own. Don't decontextualize it and call it truth, call it your perspective.

...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. ...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

A geometrical theory in physical interpretation can never be validated with mathematical certainty ... ; like any other theory of empirical science, it can acquire only a more or less high degree of confirmation.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind.

Works of art are about whatever you want them to be about.

You judge people in the context of their time, not in the context of ours.

All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require the medium of theories, mythologies, and lies.

All psychological research is completely barred by the interpretations of the psychoanalysts. Everything happens in the unconscious, and I don't know what this unconscious is.

All my lyrics are open to interpretation by the individual and imply many different meanings, therefore their relevance is purely subjective.

All poetic inspiration is but dream interpretation.

An extraordinary and controversial interpretation of Shakespeare's origins, which certainly provokes much thought. A radical analysis of Shakespeare's text, leading to a conclusion which is bound to amaze the reader and the scholar. Who was Shakespeare?

Art, to me, is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain.

A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.

But if you constantly insist only on your own interpretation, it isn't long before it seems patronizing.

By now even the word socialism has so many meanings and interpretations. The Russians call themselves socialists, the Swedes call themselves. And let's not forget that in Germany there was also a national socialism.

A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?'

Every interpretation is but an introduction to another interpretation, and that is how Talmud pages are printed.

Everybody has his own interpretation of a painting he sees.

Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.

Everything begins in thought and the reality is only our interpretation of the situation.

Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.

God either rules as sovereign in interpretation over *all* areas of life or none.

Ginnifer Goodwin said it very well - we're not doing the Hall Of Presidents at Disneyland. This is my interpretation of [J.F] Kennedy.

Buddha never rejected Hinduism, but he broadened its base. He gave it a new life and a new interpretation.

I am not in front of my body, I am in it or rather I am it... If we can still speak of interpretation in relation to the perception of one's own body, we shall have to say that it interprets itself.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.

I am the third Jenkin Jones to preach that liberal interpretation of Christianity generally known as Unitarianism.

I don't like to get too specific about lyrics. It places limitations on them, and spoils the listeners' interpretation.

I don't have a religion. I believe in a God. I don't know what it looks like but it's MY god. My own interpretation of the supernatural.

I feel like great TED Talks are ones that are a little bit subject to interpretation, that do provoke further conversation - and potentially controversy.

I always prefer other people's interpretations over my own, so I'm not very quick to make explicit what exactly a song or record is about.

I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is

I do not document anything, I give an interpretation.

I have never said that the terrorists' interpretation of Islam is the accurate or correct one. But I have pointed out that the terrorists portray themselves quite successfully among Muslims as the exponents of true and pure Islam, and moderates have mounted no successful response as yet.

I have the right to interpretation as a dramatist. I research. It's my responsibility to find the research. It's my responsibility to digest it and do the best that I can with it. But at a certain point that responsibility will become an interpretation.

If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen interpretation says to me, it would be 'Shut up and calculate!'

I'm inspired by the music, always have been, always will be, it's only what a track or instrumental interpretation from a producer can do that will excite my pen into making magic for someone else to enjoy..Only the music inspires me.

I will not be a slave to my image, nor will I be a slave to anyone else's interpretations of me.

I see artists as a great battalion moving through paint, words, music towards cosmological interpretation.

Life is like art - it is all about interpretation.

It must be noted that it is often the colleague or direct disciple of a new thinker who gets stuck in literal interpretations of the work, tending to freeze the new ideas and language into an inflexible, static condition.