Politics, Language, and Time Quotes

“only after we have understood what means he had of saying anything can we understand what he meant to say, what he succeeded in saying, what he was taken to have said, or what effects his utterance had in modifying or transforming the existing paradigm structures. Authors--individuals thinking and articulating--remain the actors in any story we may have to tell, but the units of the proceses we trace are the paradigms of political speech.”
― J.G.A. Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History