It is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Rhetoric often forces trade-offs, making it hard to state one truth without undermining another.
- In plain terms
- It is hard to say one true thing without sounding like you are lying about another.
- What can you take from it?
- Be aware that language limits absolute clarity.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you handle contradictory truths?
- Is perfect clarity possible?
Another view
Some contexts allow clear statements without contradiction.
More from Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches.
Permalink to quote #79 There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is ma…
Permalink to quote #81 Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.
Permalink to quote #78
Related quotes
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is i…
Paul ValeryPaul Valery quote #1 'When everyone routinely uses profanity, it will lose its emphatic value, and then how will we express ourselves strongly? Will we be forced to rely on careful…
Rebecca BloodRebecca Blood quote #1 The point of quotations is that one can use another's words to be insulting.
Carolyn HeilbrunCarolyn Heilbrun quote #2