John Koenig
23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (Simon & Schuster, November 16, 2021)
Category: Language
Giorgio Agamben
Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again. ― Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. (Stanford University Press; 1 edition January 1, 2000)
Roland Barthes
Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance at the moment when it attempts to die. — Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero. (Hill and Wang; Reissue edition April 1, 1977) Originally published 1953,
Lev Vygotsky
Consciousness is reflected in a word as a sun in a drop of water. A word relates to consciousness as a living cell relates to a whole organism, as an atom relates to the universe. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness. — Lev Vygotsky, Thought and Language. (The MIT Press; revised edition edition… Continue reading Lev Vygotsky
Giorgio Agamben
Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again. — Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. (Stanford University Press; 1 edition January 1, 2000)
George Steiner
But there is a third mode of trancendence: in it language simply ceases, and the motion of spirit gives no further outward manifestation of its being. The poet enters into silence. Here the word borders not on radiance or music, but on night. — George Steiner, from “Silence and the Poet,” Language and Silence: Essays… Continue reading George Steiner
Jennifer Moxley
The poet is buried in the obliterated whiteness beneath the dark letters of a poem. — Jennifer Moxley, “Fragments of a Broken Poetics,” Chicago Review, Spring 2010
C.D. Wright
Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified. ― C.D. Wright, Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil. (Copper Canyon Press; First Printing edition, February 1, 2005)
Martin Heidegger
To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world’s sky. — Martin Heidegger, “The Thinker As Poet,” Poetry, Language, Thought. (Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Later Printing Used edition, December 3, 2013)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits. ― Ludwig… Continue reading Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Vale of Soul-Making 