Quotes About Language

Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words. Every time we open our mouths, a thousand dead men speak through us.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

You can not apply mathematics as long as words still becloud reality.

To him, English was still a mudslide of runny, slushy sounds that did not exist in his mother tongue—r, th, sh, and some particularly gelatinous vowels. Frawder thur prueless rare shur per thurst. Mirtler freckling thow. Gold freys yawder far cration. Crewl fry rackler friend thur. No shemling keal rearand for fear under shall an frick. Folger rich shermane furl hearst when pearsh thurlow larshes your morse claws. Clushes ream glown roven thurm shalter shirt.

She thought there was no greater violence than the one done to meaning.

I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.

All of that pile on you so that, sooner or later, you cannot bear it anymore. And in that situation I started to write, because there was no other ways for me to express, except through the vicious cycle of words.

Ich trage stilles Gepäck. Ich habe mich so tief und so lang ins Schweigen gepackt, ich kann mich in Worten nie auspacken. Ich packe mich nur anders ein, wenn ich rede.

Das Kind redet weiter. Beim Reden bleibt etwas auf der Zunge liegen. Das Kind denkt sich, es kann nur die Wahrheit sein, die sich auf die Zunge liegt wie ein Kirschkern, der nicht in den Hals fallen will. Solange die Stimme beim Reden ins Ohr steigt, wartet sie auf die Wahrheit. Aber gleich nach dem Schweigen, denkt sich das Kind, ist alles gelogen, weil die Wahrheit in den Hals gefallen ist.

Today the grass listens when I speak of love. It seems to me that this word isn't honest even with itself.

The Russian commands sound like the name of the camp commandant. Shishtvanyanov: a gnashing and spluttering collection of ch, sh, tch, shch. We can't understand the actual words, but we sense the contempt. You get used to contempt. After a while the commands just sound like a constant clearing of the throat—coughing, sneezing, nose blowing, hacking up mucus. Trudi Pelikan said: Russian is a language that's caught a cold.

Czyta?, LESEN, i ?y?, LEBEN, ró?ni? si? tylko jedn? liter?.

Ik weet niet hoe woorden dat tot stand brengen, dat de zin opglinstert en veel meer zegt dan de inhoud van zijn woorden.

Man's chiefest treasure is a sparing tongue.

The biggest lesson I've learned by living abroad for the last four years is the importance of communication.

In vino Veritas. In Aqua satietas. In... What is the Latin for Tea? What! Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.

Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!

There is a pause, while she turns the great pages of her volume of rage, and puts her finger on just the right word.

A statute is written to entrap meaning, a poem to escape it.

It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation.

God knows our hearts. There is no need for an idle formula or an intermediary. No need for language either: God is beyond translation.