A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications whi...ch I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" verses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits ...of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classica...l dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, "memoirs to serve for a history," which is but materials to serve for a mythology.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In another's sentences the thought, though it may be immortal, is as it were embalmed, and does not strike you, but here it is so ...freshly living, even the body of it not having passed through the ordeal of death, that it stirs in the very extremities, and the smallest particles and pronouns are all alive with it. It is not simply dictionary it, yours or mine, but IT.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He does not go to the dictionary, the word-book, but to the word-manufactory itself, and has made endless work for the lexicograph...ers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be ...formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Theologians should not be ashamed to admit that they cannot enter a contest with such antagonists [the sceptics], and that they do... not want to expose the Gospel truths to such an attack. The ship of Jesus Christ is not made for sailing on this stormy sea, but for taking shelter from this tempest in the haven of faith.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, t...hey then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »