Friedrich Nietzsche - Richard Feynman - Susan Sontag - Sigmund Freud - Walter Benjamin - Marcus Tullius Cicero - Pablo Casals - Oliver Stone -
All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. Friedrich Nietzsche
Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation. Friedrich Nietzsche
This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation. Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, 1955
Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings’. It is to turn the world into this world. (‘This world!’ As if there were any other.)
The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have. Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays
The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation. Walter Benjamin
In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred. Marcus Tullius Cicero
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written. Pablo Casals
I will come out with my interpretation. If I’m wrong, fine. It will become part of the debris of history, part of the give and take. Oliver Stone