Skip to content

An ordinary translator sinks under the energy of his original: the man of genius frequently rises above it.

— Alexander Fraser Tytler Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)

Another quote →

Topics

Intelligence

More quotes by Alexander Fraser Tytler

Patriotism always exists in the greatest degree in rude nations, and in an early period of society.

Works which consist of fact and detail demand a more scrupulous fidelity than those of which the basis is sentiment.

Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)

The utility of translations is universally felt, and therefore there is a continual demand for them. But this very circumstance has thrown the practice of translation into mean and mercenary hands.

Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)

In Latin two negatives make an affirmative; but it is otherwise in Greek, they only give force to the negation ...

Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)

It is always a fault when the translator adds to the sentiment of the original author, what does not strictly accord with his characteristic mode of thinking, or expressing himself.

Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)

All Alexander Fraser Tytler quotes →

You may also like

Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Fraser Tytler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.