quotations about language
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
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
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
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
To clothe low-creeping matter with high-flown language is not fine fancy but flat foolery; it rather loads than raises a wren, to fasten the feathers of an ostrich to her wings.
THOMAS FULLER
The Holy State and the Profane State
There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Language is the dress of thought.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Lives of the English Poets
Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.
MARK HOPKINS
address at dedication of Williston Seminary, Dec. 1, 1841
For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
STEPHEN HAWKING
British Telecom advertisement, 1993
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
It is a silly conceit, that men without languages are often without understanding; it is apparent in all ages, that some such have been even prodigies for ability; for it is not to be believed that wisdom speaks only to her disciples in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
THOMAS FULLER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb! for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must go round an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, Apr. 1841
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
The world is not real for me until it has been pushed through the mesh of language.
JOHN BANVILLE
The Paris Review, spring 2009
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
Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
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
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
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