semantic limitations Quotes

The trouble with words is that they give us the illusory sense that we are making ourselves understood as well as understanding what others are saying. However, when we turn around and come face-to-face with our destiny, we discover that words are not enough.

Writing cannot express all words, words cannot encompass all ideas.

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.

I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore.

Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.

There are ideas it will be easy to say in the future that we just don't have the language for now.

That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out.

I knew words were like chains, they held me back . . . the act of description taints the description.

What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms?

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?

The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief.