Language Quotes

Language is capable of becoming the objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations.

Translation is at best an echo.

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

Does inadequacy not characterize all that we make use of to perceive and describe the world? Are the signs of language not just as inadequate, albeit differently, as are images?

The liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves.

We live in our language like blind men walking on the edge of an abyss. This language is laden with future catastrophes. The day will come when it will turn against those who speak it.

Because it equates tradition with prejudice, the left finds itself increasingly unable to converse with ordinary people in their common language.

[Art] can speak its own language only as long as the images are alive which refuse and refute the established order.

Music is the one universal language. It's your best friend when the chips are down, and it's better than any energy drink when you're feeling it.

He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.

whenever the literary german dives into a sentence, this is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

A speaker is like a lousy auto mechanic: Every time he fixes something in the language, he screws up something else.

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.

I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required.

I don't believe there is anything in the whole earth that you can't learn in Berlin except the German language.

... the English alphabet is pure insanity..., It can hardly spell any word in the language with any degree of certainty.

I can't just tell the guys I want the ball, I have to do it with my body language.

There are no language barriers when you are smiling.

The finest command of language is often shown by saying nothing.

The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language.

[On Italian:] One may almost call it a language that talks of itself, and always seems more witty than its speakers.

Just remember, the language of gesture is more effective than the spoken word. Body language is very powerful. Bring the balance within you and project that balance.

I think of language as our first music.

So women are at the beginning of building a language, and not all women are conscious of it.

The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor.

The thought of today cannot be expressed in the language of yesterday.

A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.

Why should I just limit myself to the Urdu language? Why not sing in different languages?

Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.

A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.

Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.

We need only look to our Navajo Code Talkers during World War II to see the value that Native languages bring not only to their culture, but to the security of all Americans.

There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.

Science is a matter of adjusting language to explain material reality. Art is a matter of adjusting material reality to create a sense of life.

I speak two languages, Body and English.

As they say in Discworld, we are trying to unravel the Mighty Infinite using a language which was designed to tell one another where the fresh fruit was.

A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

I loved everything about Spain - the people, the language, and the food!

Verbing weirds language.

Requirements in mathematical language are no use unless they are easier to read than the code.

The painting cannot be laid aside even for a day; for it takes constant work to keep 'flowing,' but above that it takes concentration, which in our language is consecration.

The language of love may be universal, but it's not one of the options on an ATM machine.

Verbal and nonverbal activity is a unified whole, and theory and methodology should be organized or created to treat it as such.

The habits and language of clandestinity can intoxicate even its own practitioners.

And this I have learned grown-ups do not know the language of shadows.

It was Ronald Reagan who used to say that the 10 most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help."

Baseball is a universal language. Catch the ball, throw the ball, hit the ball.

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.