Quotes About Language

We reactionaries are unfortunate: the left steals our ideas and the right our vocabulary.

The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society.

Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease.

Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.

Whate'er is well conceived is clearly said,And the words to say it flow with ease.

At last comes Malherbe and, the first to do so in France, brings to his verse a smooth cadence.

The art of the parenthesis is one of the great secrets of eloquence in Society.

When two words are identical, you must not take undue offence or think you have been wronged in terms of choice. Simplicity is a fine patience of meaning.

opening and closing the pages of a celestial dictionary at will and always falling upon the words hair fur and sex until a bunch of distant images arise at the same time as June when she kneels in front of me her tongue making little cross-strokes in my full-moon fur my enchanted-lake fur we should do it again so that I too can stroke through June's fur.

I am trying to imagine language without light, as though I wanted to understand how things were before language, when, deep in the throat, syllables and vowels were not yet organized and it was necessary to tilt one's head back to allow sounds to fly through the open air, terrifying, guttural or strident.

D'une manière globale, je dirais que pour écrire, il faut [...] ressentir une profonde insatisfaction devant le discours majoritaire et englobant qui nie les différences et qui sclérose la pensée.

When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefor objective in the sense that it can be unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.

I am not getting into the rarebit versus rabbit argument. Whatever you call it, it is still cheese on toast.

I despair of the term 'clean eating'...it necessarily implies that any other form of eating – and consequently the eater of it – is dirty or impure and thus bad.

I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )

Humans cannot communicate; not even their brains can communicate; not even their conscious minds can communicate. Only communication can communicate.

Menschen können nicht kommunizieren, nicht einmal ihre Gehirne können kommunizieren, nicht einmal das Bewußtsein kann kommunizieren. Nur die Kommunikation kann kommunizieren.

A própria sincera, ao expressar-se, torna-se insincera.

Only communication can communicate

No es posible pensar sistemáticamente sin escribir.