Quote by Edith Hamilton
There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers. – Edith Hamilton

Other quotes by Edith Hamilton

A peoples literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can. – Edith Hamilton

Category:
Knowledge
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None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry. – Edith Hamilton

Category:
Poetry
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Other Quotes from
Translation
category

Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information — hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. – Walter Benjamin

Category:
Translation

Nor ought a genius less than his that writ attempt translation. – Sir John Denham

Category:
Translation

The test of a given phrase would be: Is it worthy to be immortal? To make a beeline for something. Thats worthy of being immortal and is immortal in English idiom. I guess Ill split is not going to be immortal and is excludable, therefore excluded. – Robert Fitzgerald

Category:
Translation

Humor is the first gift to perish in a foreign language. – Virginia Woolf

Category:
Translation

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