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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

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
Author
Edith Hamilton
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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
Author
Edith Hamilton
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Other Quotes from
Translation
category

Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift. – Harry Mathews

Category:
Translation

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. – Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

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

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

Random Quotes

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. – Cyril Connolly

Category:
Self-Respect

A meow massages the heart. – Stuart McMillan

Category:
Cats

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop. – P. J. ORourke

Category:
Government

You cant but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will work better, because its a narrative art form. – Tom Stoppard

Category:
Art