#ambiguities

The surrealists, and the modern movement in painting as a whole, seemed to offer a key to the strange postwar world with its threat of nuclear war. The dislocations and ambiguities, in cubism and abstract art as well as the surrealists, reminded me of my childhood in Shanghai. ↗

— J. G. Ballard

#abstract art #ambiguities #art #childhood #cubism

The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition. ↗

— Marilyn Hacker

#both #connotation #fascinating #gained #how

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities. ↗

— Herman Melville

#ambiguities #chosen #vehicle

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#ambiguities #avoided #been #experience #idealism

We are quite at ease in this no man's land of ignorance and doubt and dispute, absorbed in the ambiguities of trying to reach truth by mixing fact with invention. ↗

— Barry Unsworth

#dispute #doubt #ease #fact #ignorance