#comprehensible

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. ↗

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#being #especially #incomprehensible #languages #method

The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings. ↗

— Martin Buber

#comprehensible #embracing #through #world

There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insoluble and the economic ones are incomprehensible. ↗

— Alec Douglas-Home

#incomprehensible #insoluble #life #my life #ones

Art must unquestionably have a social value; that is, as a potential means of communication it must be addressed, and in comprehensible terms, to the understanding of mankind. ↗

— Rockwell Kent

#art #communication #comprehensible #mankind #means

That's the way it is with poetry: When it is incomprehensible it seems profound, and when you understand it, it is only ridiculous. ↗

— Galway Kinnell

#only #poetry #profound #ridiculous #seems

A tree is an incomprehensible mystery. ↗

— Jim Woodring

#mystery #tree

One of the monks was doing something incomprehensible at the altar, and the others would occasionally chant a few phrases of mumbo jumbo. ↗

— Ken Follett

#religion #religion

... While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness. ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better. ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... ↗

— Andrew Elfenbein

#incomprehensible #poetry #romantic-poets #romantic

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. ↗

— Jane Austen

#ever #incomprehensible #man #marriage #offer

Not longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#beauty #become #exposes #face #features