Language as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of God.
—Noah Webster (1758–1843) American Lexicographer, Journalist, Author
All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
In the intercourse of the world people should not take words as so much genuine coin of standard metal, but merely as counters that people play with.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Sweedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
The secret of language is the secret of sympathy and its full charm is possible only to the gentle.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The English language is being augmented every year by about 400 new words. We cannot cope. We are drowning in the plethora. It
—Anthony Burgess (1917–93) English Novelist, Critic, Composer
The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.
—Ned Rorem (b.1923) American Composer, Diarist
One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
The downtrodden, who are the great creators of slang.
—Anthony Burgess (1917–93) English Novelist, Critic, Composer
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public. Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire.
—George W. Crane (1901–95) American Psychologist, Physician
Spanish is the language of lovers, Italian is for the singer, French for diplomats, and German for horses.
—Spanish Proverb
There is no such thing as the Queen’s English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
How many languages are there in the world? How about 5 billion! Each of us talks, listens, and thinks in his/her own special language that has been shaped by our culture, experiences, profession, personality, mores and attitudes. The chances of us meeting someone else who talks the exact same language is pretty remote.
—Unknown
Command of English, spoken or written, ranks at the top in business. Our main product is words, so a knowledge of their meaning and spelling and pronunciation is imperative. If a man knows the language well, he can find out about all else.
—William Feather (1889–1981) American Publisher, Author
Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost part of us.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
And who in time knows whither we may vent the treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores this gain of our best glories shall be sent, ‘t unknowing Nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident may come refined with the accents that are ours?
—Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) English Poet, Historian
A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is ignorant of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Language is a virus from outer space.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
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
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
But no language is perfect, no vocabulary is adequate to the wealth of the given universe, no pattern of words and sentences, however rich, however subtle, can do justice to the interconnected Gestalts with which experience presents us. Consequently the phenomenal forms of our name-conditioned universe are by nature delusory and fallacious. Wisdom comes only to those who have learned how to talk and read and write without taking language more seriously than it deserves. As the only begotten of civilization and even of our humanity, language must be taken very seriously. Seriously, too, as an instrument (when used with due caution) for thinking about the relationships between phenomena. But it must never be taken seriously when it is used, as in the old creedal religions and their modern political counterparts, as being in any way the equivalents of immediate experience or as being a source of true knowledge about the nature of things.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
No literature is complete until the language it was written in is dead.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Language is the Rubicon that divides man from beast.
—Max Muller (1823–1900) German-Born British Philologist, Orientalist
Language is the dress of thought.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms
—Penelope Lively (b.1933) English Novelist, Children’s Author
It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.
—Franklin P. Jones
There was speech in their dumbness; language in their very gesture.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Poetry is all nouns and verbs.
—Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American Poet
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