Slippery words and viscous thoughts
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. - Henry Adams When I pulled the quote from my Google home page I'd read the author as Henry James . I've never heard of Henry Adams. They say he was an historian, author and autobiographer. What does that mean, autobiographer? Writing one's own biography isn't usually thought of as a vocation. One book does not a career make. Maybe he was a ghost writer for other people's autobiographies, something common today among celebrities and politicians but I'd be surprised to learn it was common in the late nineteenth century. Anyway, I liked the combination of metaphors: slippery words and viscous thoughts. Alone, each is less powerful. Together, the slippery words are more dangerous and the viscous thoughts a more serious threat. Together, we feel a viscous mind losing control on the slippery surface of language. Thrilling, with ill in its middle. So little of ...