True Names in Popular Culture

True Names In Popular Culture

A true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical with, its true nature. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical and grammatical study as well as various traditions of magic, religious invocation and mysticism (mantras) since antiquity.

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Famous quotes containing the words true, names, popular and/or culture:

    It’s the misfortune of German authors that not a single one of them dares to expose his true character. Everyone thinks that he has to be better than he is.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.
    Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)

    But popular rage,
    Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
    None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
    Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)