Quotes About Language

words are always imperfect, words are just sounds we make with our mouths that point our minds to think of things that cannot be fully described in words anyway. I am a writer, so I know where words fail us. A name is not a person, it is just what we have agreed to call them.

We are the witnesses of a barely perceptible transformation in ordinary language: verbs which formerly expressed satisfying actions have been replaced by nouns which name packages designed for passive consumption only -- 'to learn' becomes 'to accumulate credits'.

In days of doubt, in days of sad brooding on my country's fate, thou alone art my rod and my staff—mighty, true, free Russian speech! But for thee, how not to fall into despair, seeing all that happens at home? Yet who can think that such a tongue is not given to a great people?

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

To hunt words is to do no trespass.

Our party has been accused of fooling the public by calling tax increases 'revenue enhancement.' Not so. No one was fooled.

Today, the language of the market penetrates every pore and forces every interpersonal relation into the schema of individual preference.

From the structure of language comes the explanation of why the human spirit is condemned to an odyssey - why it first finds its way to itself only on a detour via a complete externalization in other things and in other humans. Only at the greatest distance from itself does it become conscious of itself in its irreplaceable singularity as an individuated being.

Contextualism is only the flipside of logocentrism.

Diskurse herrschen nicht. Sie erzeugen eine kommunikative Macht, die die administrative nicht ersetzen kann, sondern nur beeinflussen kann.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.

In de taal zit een vrijheid verborgen waar de censor niet bij kan. Al onze schrijvers kennen dat geheim.

It is in the nature of love to bind itself";2 vows are love's native language. Love that is mute in the language of promises, though it may be called love, is not love but something else.

If all meaning were relative, then the meanings of the terms in the proposition "All meaning is relative" would be relative. Therefore the proposition "All meaning is relative" destroys itself. It is nothing but an evasion of reality. That seems a high price to pay, even for the privilege of killing people.

I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Our lives today are saturated with myth, its symbols, language, and content, all of which are part of our common heritage as human beings

Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use these languages, or we remain mute.

Science fiction is the apocalyptic literature of the twentieth century, the authentic language of Auschwitz, Eniwetok and Aldermaston.

Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.

the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language.

According to that fundamental principle, language is truthful, not when the meaning attached to the words by the speaker, but when the meaning intended to be produced in the mind of the particular person addressed, is in accordance with the facts.

Our language is funny — a fat chance and slim chance are the same thing.

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.