You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
Interpretation
The essence of poetry is lost in translation, unlike scientific texts that can be accurately translated.
Samuel Johnson expresses the idea that while the factual content of science can be translated with precision, the emotional and aesthetic qualities found in poetry are intimately tied to the original language. Therefore, the beauty and nuances of poetic expression are often diminished or transformed in translation, making it impossible to fully convey the original intent and feel.
In practice
This quote would be perfect for a discussion on the challenges of translating literary works in a literature class.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
My father, if anything, first and last, was a man of words. He loved stories; he didn't live for stories, exactly, but I think he lived through stories. I think, like many writers, he loved stories about things he had experienced as much as, if not more than, he loved the experiences themselves.
If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.
When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'
An unread author is an author who is a victim of the worst kind of censorship, indifference - a censorship more effective than the Ecclesiastical Index.
You have started the book with this bubble over your head that contains a cathedral full of fire - that contains a novel so vast and great and penetrating and bright and dark that it will put all other novels ever written to shame. And then, as you get towards the end, you begin to realise, no, it's just this book.
It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.
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