There is no surer or more illuminating way of reading a man's character, and perhaps a little of his past history, than by observing the contexts in which he prefers to use certain words. — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
In the common words we use every day, souls of past races, the thoughts and feelings of individual men stand around us, not dead, but frozen into their attitudes like the courtiers in the garden of the Sleeping Beauty. — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
When any significant change takes place in the moral standards of a community, it is immediately reflected in a general shifting of the meanings… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
And what is the very essence of poetry if it is not this 'metaphorical language'-this marking of the before unapprehended relations of things? — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
When the velocity of progress increases beyond a certain point, it becomes indistinguishable from crisis. — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
“...library terror - that feeling of being hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of available books...” — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
“When we recall the great influence which Spenser's poetry has exerted on English poets who have lived and written since his day, we can… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
...the poet, while creating anew, is likely to be in a sense restoring something old. — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
“Imagination is not, as some poets have thought, simply synonymous with good. It may be either good or evil. As long as art remained… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
There is no surer or more illuminating way of reading a man's character, and perhaps a little of his past history, than by observing… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
The obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it. — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
“All conscious nature has experiences of pleasure and pain. Man alone can deliberately will the repetition of an experience. And repetition, experienced as such,… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
In the common words we use every day, souls of past races, the thoughts and feelings of individual men stand around us, not dead,… — Owen Barfield Copy Share Image
