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About this quote

What does it mean?
Abstract concepts like sin and love are just words until experienced personally.
In plain terms
Words for deep feelings mean nothing without real experience.
What can you take from it?
Experience gives meaning to abstract words.

Where it applies

  • philosophy
  • education
  • self-discovery

Putting it to work

  • seek experiences
  • avoid empty jargon

Questions to consider

  • What word feels empty to you?

Another view

Language can still convey shared understanding without direct experience.

More from William Faulkner

  1. He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; t…

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  2. I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind-and that of the minds wh…

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  3. Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

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