Literary notes about Significance (AI summary)
In literature, "significance" is often deployed as a pivot that connects surface details with deeper, sometimes hidden, layers of meaning. Writers use the term to highlight the underlying import of actions, symbols, or experiences—from the analysis of neurotic fear ([1]) and the nuanced shifts in mythological symbolism ([2]) to the examination of fleeting glances that reveal unspoken messages ([3]). This versatile word not only underscores the practical consequence of an observation, as in scientific or legal contexts ([4], [5]), but also invites readers to explore philosophical and emotional dimensions of human life ([6], [7]). Ultimately, its use enriches a narrative or argument, urging a deeper inquiry into how seemingly ordinary elements acquire extraordinary meaning.
- Clinical observation yields several suggestions for the comprehension of neurotic fear, the significance of which I shall discuss with you.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - The new significance of mythology has obscured the old, and was a symbol for material facts has become a drama, an apologue, and an ideal.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - The significance of this reply was not so well disguised by Mr. Pickwick but that Arabella understood it.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - In regard to the possession of stolen goods, such a sentence may have similar significance.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - The most typical site of hemorrhage is beneath the periosteum, a lesion widely known on account of its clinical significance ( Fig. 16 ).
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess - Nevertheless, these statements convey only an inadequate idea of the true significance of the movement.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - 1. The transcendental principle: “Everything that is contingent must have a cause”—a principle without significance, except in the sensuous world.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
