But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them.
Edmund Burke: “But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke contrasts the effects of words with those of natural objects and art, asserting that words can evoke beauty and the sublime.
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