quotations about language
A man reacheth not to excellence with one language.
R. ASCHAM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Language was invented for one reason, boys -- to woo women.
N. H. KLEINBAUM
Dead Poets Society
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
Since individuals think in the language in which they speak, thought processes are limited to words and concepts within that language. If a word for a concept doesn't exist in that language, it cannot be thought. Because language is the cornerstone of thinking and culture, as the languages around the world die out, ways of thinking become restricted.
JORDAN RYDER
"Native American Student Association to Stage Screening of Language Loss Documentary", Daily Iowan, March 29, 2016
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 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
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
Language was not given to man: he seized it.
LOUIS ARAGON
Le Libertinage
Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.
MARK HOPKINS
address at dedication of Williston Seminary, Dec. 1, 1841
Language is the dress of thought.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Lives of the English Poets
In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned.
RICHARD DUPPA
Maxims
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
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
Language is a window to the world.
SUSANNA ZARAYSKY
Language Is Music: Over 100 Fun & Easy Tips to Learn Foreign Languages
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
Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
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
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