Northrop Frye - Knowledge Quotes

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The axiom of criticism must be, not that the poet does not know what he is talking about, but that he cannot talk about what he knows. To defend the right of criticism to exist at all, therefore, is to assume that criticism is a structure of thought and knowledge existing in its own right, with some measure of independence from the art it deals with.

Northrop Frye

The worst thing we can say about God is that he knows all. The best thing we can say of him is that, on the whole, he tends to keep his knowledge to himself.

Northrop Frye

Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature, and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not nature. Art, like nature, has to be distinguished from the systematic study of it, which is criticism.

Northrop Frye

Nobody is capable of of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to learned and worked at.

Northrop Frye

Belief has nothing to do with knowledge, & credo ut intelligam [I believe in order that I might understand] is horseshit.

Northrop Frye

In imaginative thought there is no real knowledge of anything but similarities (ultimately identities): knowledge of differences is merely a transition to a new knowledge of similarities.

Northrop Frye