Will Durant Quotes

Silence is a statement that is open to gross misinterpretation.

The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said

Everything I think in life is about context and intention.

All things show up in the world according to the purposes we ascribe to them.

Weigh the meaning and look not at the words.

This is a much more fitting interpretation of the book than its modern interpretation.

Without philosophy, history is always for me dead and dumb.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Something's that written out is okay, but it's not always a clear indication of what a person means.

Alternative descriptions of the same reality evoke different emotions and different associations.

For me context is the key - from that comes the understanding of everything.

I don't think you really can send an exact message, because any two viewers are so disparate, in terms of their backgrounds, their point of view, their histories, that there's no telling what that message might be.

I can see now that a concept or even a feeling makes no sense unless out of our substance we spin around it a web of references, of relationships, of values.

I think it's important for people to always understand what is the context is in what is being said, because that obviously determines what folks are talking about.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

Tone is up for grabs in what we do - what's the tone of the scene.

The power of a thing or an act is in the meaning and the understanding.

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

Sometimes, when I do certain looks, I don't want the intention to be taken out of context or expressed in the wrong way.

There's a misunderstanding about what nonsensical things are - the idea that they're just funny, and that's the beginning and the end of it. Nonsense is not 'not sense' - it operates at the edge of sense. It teems with sense - at the same time, it resists any kind of universal understanding.

Before any of it could make sense, it had to be heard.

The words that are coming out of my mouth and how I mean them, it's so much different.

The same words come from each mouth differently.

Our attitude can give us an uncommonly positive perspective.

Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?