A Quote by Alberto Manguel

Socrates affirmed that only that which the reader already knows can be sparked by a reading, and that the knowledge cannot be acquired through dead letters.

Alberto Manguel

Quote Topics

Acquired Cannot Dead Knowledge Knows Letters Only Reader Reading Through Which

Quote Author

Alberto Manguel
Argentinian - Novelist
Born: March 13, 1948

Learning is acquired by reading books; much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.

Lord Chesterfield

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Socrates splits himself into two, so that there are two Socrates: the Socrates who knows in advance how the discussion is going to end, and the Socrates who travels the entire dialectical path along with his interlocutor.

Pierre Hadot

We must be forewarned that only rarely does a text easily lend itself to the reader's curiosity... the reading of a text is a transaction between the reader and the text, which mediates the encounter between the reader and writer. It is a composition between the reader and the writer in which the reader "rewrites" the text making a determined effort not to betray the author's spirit.

Paulo Freire

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

Billy Crystal

Never lose sight of this important truth, that no one can be truly great until he has gained a knowledge of himself, a knowledge which can only be acquired by occasional retirement.

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

O ay, letters - I had letters - I am persecuted with letters - I hate letters - nobody knows how to write letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know why - they serve one to pin up one's hair.

William Congreve

A writer often wants to change a reader’s perception about the world, which is a political act. But we have to work through character, so helping the reader to feel close to fictional characters is the gate through which we have to usher the reader.

Caryl Phillips

The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.

Michel de Montaigne

The author always knows more than the reader does at the start of a novel, and gradually, they share that knowledge with the reader - that's storytelling.

Simon Toyne

The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which precedes us. One cannot do just anything. A talented artist cannot do whatever he pleases. If he only used his gifts, he would not exist. We are not the masters of what we produce. It is imposed on us.

Henri Matisse

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

John Tillotson

All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat.

Eugene Ionesco

We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.

Margaret Atwood

We should think about what we mean by literacy. If you say, "He's a very literate person," what you really mean is that he knows a lot, thinks a lot, has a certain frame of mind that comes through reading and knowing about various subjects.The major route open to literacy has been through reading and writing text. But we're seeing new media offer richer ways to explore knowledge and communicate, through sound and pictures.