Seven Types of Ambiguity Quotes

“All languages are composed of dead metaphors as the soil of corpses, but English is perhaps uniquely full of metaphors of this sort, which are not dead but sleeping, and, while making a direct statement, colour it with an implied comparison.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“...the machinations of ambiguity are among the very roots of poetry.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“The object of life, after all, is not to understand things, but to maintain one's defences and equilibrium and live as well as one can; it is not only maiden aunts who are placed like this”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful. I propose to use the word in an extended sense, and shall think relevant to my subject any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“It is because of the wealth of implication which must be carried by sentences in poetry, because they must start from scratch and put the reader in possession of the entire attitude they assume, that the notion of ‘ sincerity ’ is important, and that it is so hard to imitate a style.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“As for the immediate importance of the study of ambiguity, it would be easy enough to take up an alarmist attitude, and say that the English language needs nursing by the analyst very badly indeed. Always rich and dishevelled, it is fast becoming very rich and dishevelled…”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“Thus a poetical word is a thing conceived in itself and includes all its meanings; a prosaic word is flat and useful and might have been used differently.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

“Normal sensibility is a tissue of what has been conscious theory made habitual and returned to the pre-conscious, and, therefore, conscious theory may make an addition to sensibility even though it draws no (or no true) conclusion, formulates no general theory, in the scientific sense, which reconciles and makes quickly available the results which it describes.”
― William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity