False Negatives

Famous quotes containing the words false and/or negatives:

“He showed me that the lines of a good helve
Were native to the grain before the knife
Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves
Put on it from without.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)

“‘Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage
When Bajazet begins to rage;
Nor a tall met’phor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca.
Nor upon all things to obtrude
And force some odd similitude.
What is it then, which like the power divine
We only can by negatives define?”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)