quotations about language
The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Language is not a wonderful natural asset; it is an artificial device that constantly misleads us and does us great harm; and the modern way of studying language is itself harmful because it enhances the reputation of language and sustains corrupt ways of thought.
AMOREY GETHIN
introduction, Language and Thought: A Rational Enquiry Into Their Nature and Relationship
A man reacheth not to excellence with one language.
R. ASCHAM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Language was not given to man: he seized it.
LOUIS ARAGON
Le Libertinage
Language is originally and essentially nothing but a system of signs or symbols, which denote real occurrences, or their echo in the human soul.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.
EDWARD HIRSCH
How to Read a Poem
Wouldn't it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the nuisance of communicating in a different language?... Within a decade or so, we'll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. No more trying to remember your high school French when checking into a hotel in Paris. Your earpiece will automatically translate "Good evening, I have a reservation" to Bon soir, j'ai une réservation -- while immediately translating the receptionist's unintelligible babble to "I am sorry, Sir, but your credit card has been declined."
DAVID ARBESÚ
"Could the language barrier actually fall within the next 10 years?", The Conversation, March 28, 2016
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.
STANLEY FISH
How to Write a Sentence
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
Speech is the best show a man puts on.
BENJAMIN LEE WHORF
Language, Thought and Reality
In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned.
RICHARD DUPPA
Maxims
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
The sole constitutional office of language being to express our ideas and sentiments, it becomes more and more perfect and useful, the more effectually it subserves this sole end of its creation.
ORSON SQUIRE FOWLER
Memory and Intellectual Improvement
If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
GEORGE ORWELL
1984
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
Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
GEORGE ORWELL
The English People
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Essays
In the last century researchers and pedagogues viewed children learning a second language as an impediment to learning. The resultant pedagogical philosophy delayed the introduction of "foreign" languages to the high school years, just in time for the real impediment to focused learning -- adolescence.
JAY KUTEN
"Language is food for the brain", Wanganui Chronicle, March 16, 2016
Language is the dress of thought.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Lives of the English Poets
Language is a window to the world.
SUSANNA ZARAYSKY
Language Is Music: Over 100 Fun & Easy Tips to Learn Foreign Languages