There is in the word, in the logos, something sacred which forbids us to gamble with it. To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
[Il y a dans le mot, dans le verbe, quelque chose de sacré qui nous défend d’en faire un jeu de hasard. Manier savamment une langue, c’est pratiquer une espèce de sorcellerie évocatoire.]
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
L’Art Romantique, ch. 28 “Théophile Gautier,” sec. 3 (1868) [tr. Gilman (1958)]
(Source)
Originally published in L'Artiste (1859-03-13). It appears in Vol. 3, ch. 8 of the 1885 Œuvres complètes de Charles Baudelaire.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
There exists in the word, in the verb, something sacred which prohibits us from viewing it as a mere game of chance. To manipulate language with wisdom is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
[tr. Jakobson (1981)]
There is in a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
[E.g.]
Quotations about:
sacred
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Laughter is carbonated holiness.
Anne Lamott (b. 1954) American novelist and non-fiction writer
Plan B, ch. 5 “Holy of Holies 101” (2004)
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Certainly, otherworldly concerns have a deep and significant place in all religions worthy of the name. Any religion that is completely earthbound sells its birthright for a mess of naturalistic pottage. Religion at its best, deals not only with man’s preliminary concerns but with his inescapable ultimate concern. When religion overlooks this basic fact it is reduced to a mere ethical system in which eternity is absorbed into time and God is relegated to a sort of meaningless figment of the human imagination.
But a religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man’s social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 2 “Montgomery Before the Protest” (1958)
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Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) American political activist
Quoted in “Mourning, and Celebrating, a Radical,” New York Times (20 Apr 1989)
(Source)
Most likely from "Sacred cows make great hamburgers," an anonymous saying recorded in Reisner and Wechsler, Encyclopedia of Graffiti (1974).
No day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
(Source)
It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child’s arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do to Be Saved?” Sec. 2 (1880)
At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalise, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.
Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) Indian novelist
“Do we have to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again?” The Independent (22 Jan 2005)
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