Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.
About George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, FBAwas a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, as well as the impact of the Holocaust.
More quotes from George Steiner
The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.
American writer
To many men… the miasma of peace seems more suffocating than the bracing air of war.
American writer
The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.
American writer
Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.
American writer
The age of the book is almost gone.
American writer
Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.
American writer
There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.
American writer
Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence.
American writer
The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform.
American writer
We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.
American writer
The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.
American writer