Fire and Knowledge

[Through quotes,] I make others say what I cannot say so well, now through the weakness of my language, now through the weakness of my understanding.

–Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), “Of Books” in The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (1994), p. 46

If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retentiveness.

–Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), “Of Books” in The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (1994), p. 46

A man’s character, as a rule, may be known from the place where he lives.

–Kenko (c. 1283-1350), “Essays in Idleness” in The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (1994), p. 32

The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

–Kenko (c. 1283-1350), “Essays in Idleness” in The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (1994), p. 31

The first clocks did not have dials or hands at all. They did not need them, since their use was to sound the hour.

–Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers (1983), p. 39

It was around 1330 that the hour became our modern hour, one of twenty-four equal parts of a day.

–Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers (1983), p. 39

The advertiser’s art then consists largely of the art of making persuasive statements which are neither true nor false. He does not violate the old truth-morality. Rather, like the news maker, he evades it.

–Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 214

The complexity of new manufacturing processes, the new vagueness that can be designed into vivid images, the new uncertainty of relation between the image and the thing imaged (Is it an actual photograph?)—all these make the simple question, “Is it true?” as obsolete as the horse and buggy.

–Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961), p. 214