14 Quotes by Owen Barfield

When any significant change takes place in the moral standards of a community, it is immediately reflected in a general shifting of the meanings of common words.

When a new thing or a new idea comes into the consciousness of the community, it is described, not by a new word, but by the name of the pre-existing object which most closely resembles it.

We can only cope with the dangers of language if we recognize that language is by nature magical and therefore highly dangerous.

Nobody who understands the amount of pain and energy which go to the creation of new instruments of thought can feel anything but respect for the philosophy of the Middle Ages.

It was a question of steering Christian dogma between the Scylla of pantheism and the Charybdis of materialism and its logical conclusion, scepticism.