http://www.heinrichwohl.com Welcome to the Heinrich Wohl archive on the web. Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:49:55 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Descriptions of Wohl vary a great deal. Indeed the few we have tend to contradict each other. The most detailed comes from the diary of April Ponsard, a student in Paris during the mid-1950s. She’d been to a seminar given by Sartre at the Sorbonne. After a long and rather ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2009/11/note-10/ * Silence rarely leads to misunderstanding; speaking nearly always does. All knowledge is interpretation. To understand is to translate. Translation always involves loss, change and reconstruction. All seeing is an act of translation: light into meaning, energy into understanding. http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2009/06/quote-7/ Written in the flyleaf of Wohl’s well-thumbed copy of Candide was the following enigmatic note: Voltaire’s first happiness was doubt and forgetfulness - the writing of a text littered with irony yet devoid of time. Immobility… It was this kind of note, scattered throughout Wohl’s writings, which haunted the reader. The struggle to embrace meaning, to worry the text ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2009/06/note-9-2/ On the back of an old photograph, perhaps a Venetian montage, Wohl has written: 'we all live in the shadows under a bridge between here and there, between now and then, between this world and another. We yearn to cross over the bridge. But the bridge is only a ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2009/03/note-7-2/ * The purpose of dialectics is to dissolve all dualism, and to dissolve dualism we have to embrace dualism at its most extreme, in paradox. * It is important always to hold in mind the contrary of what one is saying. * Between what I say and its opposite lies the truth - or rather ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2009/01/quote-6/ A rare verbal snapshot of Wohl comes from a concierge at a small ivy-walled Paris hotel who remembered, ‘an oriental German who spoke French like an Englishman. Always courteous, very tidy and quiet, but never seeming as if he belonged.’ A gallery owner in Rotterdam remembered, ‘the inscrutable smile of Herr ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2008/11/note-7/ * Only language can make connections because only language divides; nature is above both. * Definitions are maintained by common consent; meaning by individual dissent from the norms of definition. * Language is a defective tool for acquiring knowledge of the world - it can only be used for acquiring knowledge of itself, to extend ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2008/11/quote-5/ Wohl is reported as occasionally taking on the persona of an amateur painter. He was seen in Paris and Amsterdam at well-known tourist spots making paintings which were never completed. Most of his time seemed to be spent in long conversations with passers-by, who complimented him on his technique but ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2008/10/note-6/ * All circles return to haunt you. http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2008/10/quote-4/ Amongst Wohl’s papers there’s a passage torn from Chesterton’s small book on St. Francis. Written on the obverse side, in an excited scrawl, is the following short note. It casts a faint light on the process whereby Wohl’s writings and thoughts emerged out of his readings of an odd assortment ... http://www.heinrichwohl.com/2008/09/note-5/