A cipher has two meanings. ...the more so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning? The prophets have clearly said... that their meaning would not be understood, and that it was veiled. 677
Blaise Pascal
» Blaise Pascal - all quotes »
When you write a poem, you discover that the very necessity of fitting your meaning into such and such a form requires you to search in your imagination for new meanings. You reject certain ways of saying it; you select others, always trying to form the poem again. In your forming, you arrive at new and more profound meanings than you had even dreamed of. Form is not a mere lopping off of meaning that you don't have room to put into your poem; it is an aid to finding new meaning, a stimulus to condensing your meaning, to simplifying and purifying it, and to discovering on a more universal dimension the essence you wish to express.
Rollo May
A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain. A cipher has a double meaning, one clear, and one in which it is said that the meaning is hidden. 676
Blaise Pascal
It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It is better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for someone else.
David Lynch
If one of two persons, who are telling silly stories, uses language with a double meaning, understood in his own circle, while the other uses it with only one meaning, any one not in the secret, who hears them both talk in this manner, will pass upon them the same judgment. But if afterwords, in the rest of their conversation one says angelic things, and the other always dull commonplaces, he will judge that the one spoke in mysteries, and not the other; the one having sufficiently shown that he is incapable of such foolishness, and capable of being mysterious; and the other that he is incapable of mystery, and capable of foolishness. The Old Testament is a cipher. 690
Blaise Pascal
Types.—To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that the prophets understood by temporal blessings other blessings, this is the proof: First, that this would be unworthy of God. Secondly, that their discourses express very clearly the promise of temporal blessings, and that they say nevertheless that their discourses are obscure, and that their meaning will not be understood. Whence it appears that this secret meaning was not that which they openly expressed, and that consequently they meant to speak of other sacrifices, of another deliverer, etc. They say that they will be understood only in the fullness of time. The third proof is that their discourses are contradictory, and neutralize each other; so that if we think that they did not mean by the words "law" and "sacrifice" anything else than that of Moses, there is a plain and gross contradiction. Therefore they meant something else, sometimes contradicting themselves in the same chapter. 658
Blaise Pascal
Pascal, Blaise
Passeroni, Giancarlo
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z