Language Quotes

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.

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

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.

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

Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor.

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

I think of language as our first music.

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.

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

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.

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

There are no language barriers when you are smiling.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.

For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles.

The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.

The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.

Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.

The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.

FORTRAN was the language of choice for the same reason that three-legged races are popular.

Language is by its very nature a communal thing.

How quickly a zek (a prisoner) gets cheeky-or, putting it in literary language, how quickly a man's requirements grow.

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.

If Language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done, remains undone.

The idea of morphology of languages is something that I'm really interested in.

Each stage of development, remember, has a dialectic of progress--in plain language, every new development is good news, bad news.

Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.

We should never lower our dignity by lowering our language.

Math is my favorite subject. It's the universal language. I like the fact that wherever you go in the whole world, two plus two will still be four.

It is a most disgraceful shame the way in which Irishmen are brought up. They are ashamed of their language, institutions, and of everything Irish.

What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.

The English language is nobody's special property.