Quote: understanding is a great ability to avoid equivocation through context, drift, and occasion; we can find out the true meaning of what is said

Quotation

8. This equivocation of names maketh it difficult to recover those conceptions for which the name was ordained; and that not only in the language of other men, wherein we are to consider the drift, and occasion, and contexture of the speech, as well as the words themselves; but also in our discourse ... representeth unto us not our own conceptions. It is therefore a great ability in a man, out of the words, contexture, and other circumstances of language, to deliver himself from equivocation, and to find out the true meaning of what is said: and this is it we call understanding.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

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