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Literary notes about Suggestion (AI summary)

The word suggestion is employed in literature both as a means of proposing ideas and as a subtler indicator of underlying themes. Authors use it to signal a recommendation or course of action, as when a character’s advice subtly shifts the dynamics of a conversation ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, it captures the ephemeral force of implication—where a slight hint or inflection carries emotional weight beyond the literal words ([4], [5]). In works exploring psychology or social influence, suggestion assumes a nearly technical role, encompassing the process of directing thought or behavior without overt command ([6], [7], [8]). Moreover, in the realm of rhetoric and stylistic nuance, suggestion demarcates the fine line between what is explicitly stated and what is inferred, inviting readers to engage deeper with the text ([9], [10]). This multifaceted use reveals a rich interplay between explicit instruction and implicit influence, a technique that persists from classical literature to modern narratives ([11], [12], [13]).
  1. Mrs. Stephen Clark of Carmody persists in being most grateful to me for a suggestion which somebody else would probably have made if I hadn’t.
    — from Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
  2. It was Ruth’s suggestion that the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the small of the back where the buttons usually are.
    — from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
  3. " My suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house.
    — from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  4. It’s just to do away with anything of that sort that I make my suggestion.
    — from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James
  5. There was an extraordinary force of suggestion in this posturing.
    — from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad
  6. What is called hypnotic suggestion is nothing but the artificial selection of one idea to the exclusion of all others, so that it passes into action.
    — from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park
  7. Post-hypnotic suggestion, II. 613 Practical interests, their effects on discrimination, I. 515 ff.
    — from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
  8. This is the ordinary so-called 'post-hypnotic suggestion,' now well known, and for which Lucie was a well-adapted subject.
    — from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
  9. ( a ) Suggestion is the very heart of inference; it involves going from what is present to something absent.
    — from How We Think by John Dewey
  10. If we cancel the suggestion of this intestinal fever from the lyric of tones and words, what is left to poetry and music? ...
    — from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche
  11. When things are treated simply as vehicles of suggestion, what is suggested overrides the thing.
    — from How We Think by John Dewey
  12. He had a particular reason, which she was not aware of, for wincing under her suggestion.
    — from Middlemarch by George Eliot
  13. “No, sir, you cannot smoke here, and I wonder you are not ashamed of the very suggestion.
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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