Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things they denote.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast.
—Max Muller (1823–1900) German-Born British Philologist, Orientalist
Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words.
—Unknown
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, know nothing of their own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Poetry is all nouns and verbs.
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American Poet
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Language is the source of misunderstandings.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn forest….Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them , in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–86) American Literary Critic
Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to leam a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
—Lily Tomlin (b.1939) American Comedy Actress
To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost—that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization—is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Language is the light of the mind.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Mastery of language affords remarkable power.
—Frantz Fanon (1925–61) French-Martinique Psychoanalyst, Philosopher
Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.
—Jose Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese Novelist
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms
—Penelope Lively (b.1933) English Novelist, Children’s Author
There was speech in their dumbness; language in their very gesture.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
I’ve found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist