quotations about language
It is a silly conceit, that men without languages are often without understanding; it is apparent in all ages, that some such have been even prodigies for ability; for it is not to be believed that wisdom speaks only to her disciples in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
THOMAS FULLER
attributed, Day's Collacon
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
MARK TWAIN
Innocents Abroad
In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner.
EDMUND BURKE
Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.
MARK HOPKINS
address at dedication of Williston Seminary, Dec. 1, 1841
I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.
KATHERINE DUNN
attributed, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series
Language is the dress of thought.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Lives of the English Poets
A country without a language is a country without a soul.
ELIZABETH GREIWE
"The luck of the Irish language student", Chicago Tribune, March 16, 2016
Language evolves and moves on. It is an organic thing. It is not stuck in an ivory tower, hung with expensive works of art.
E. L. JAMES
Fifty Shades of Grey
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
Language was not given to man: he seized it.
LOUIS ARAGON
Le Libertinage
For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
STEPHEN HAWKING
British Telecom advertisement, 1993
Language is a window to the world.
SUSANNA ZARAYSKY
Language Is Music: Over 100 Fun & Easy Tips to Learn Foreign Languages
Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved; it has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, which unless fixed and arrested might have been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and perishing as the lightning.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH
On the Study of Words
In the last century researchers and pedagogues viewed children learning a second language as an impediment to learning. The resultant pedagogical philosophy delayed the introduction of "foreign" languages to the high school years, just in time for the real impediment to focused learning -- adolescence.
JAY KUTEN
"Language is food for the brain", Wanganui Chronicle, March 16, 2016
Elegant language may make darkness appear like light.
AL-IRAKI
attributed, Day's Collacon
Languages are the key or entry to the sciences and nothing more; contempt for the one redounds on the other. The question is not whether the languages be ancient of modern, dead or living; but whether they be rude or polished, whether the books found in them show a good or a bad taste.
BRUYERE
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words
Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
A hallmark feature of human intelligence is its adaptability, the ability to invent and rearrange conceptions of the world to suit changing goals and environments. One consequence of this flexibility is the great diversity of languages that have emerged around the globe. Each provides its own cognitive toolkit and encapsulates the knowledge and worldview developed over thousands of years within a culture. Each contains a way of perceiving, categorizing and making meaning in the world, an invaluable guidebook developed and honed by our ancestors.
LERA BORODITSKY
"How Language Shapes Thought", Scientific American, Feb. 2011
None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Madame Bovary