“ What we should read is not the words but the man whom we feel to be behind the words. ”
Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912). copy citation
| Author | Samuel Butler |
|---|---|
| Source | The Note-Books of Samuel Butler |
| Topic | reading words |
| Date | 1912 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6173/6173-h/6173-h.htm |
Context
“we have got to live with them, and the wise course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make the best and not the worst of them. But they are parvenu people as compared with thought and action. What we should read is not the words but the man whom we feel to be behind the words.
vi
Words impede and either kill, or are killed by, perfect thought; but they are, as a scaffolding, useful, if not indispensable, for the building up of imperfect thought and helping to perfect it.
vii”
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