Quotes About Language

Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.

Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.

Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.

Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.

Today we all speak, if not the same tongue, the same universal language. There is no one center, and time has lost its former coherence: East and West, yesterday and tomorrow exist as a confused jumble in each one of us. Different times and different spaces are combined in a here and now that is everywhere at once.

When we learn to speak, we learn to translate.

I have an idea that the phrase "weaker sex" was coined by some woman to disarm some man she was preparing to overwhelm.

Aunque las potencias nos destruyan —dijo—, ¿quiénes somos para condenarlas? Sería lo mismo que una palabra juzgara al hombre que la ha pronunciado.

The Most Difficult Tongue Twister EXPERTS AGREE. –courtesy of F. J., St. Louis, Missouri Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter, sifted a sieve of unsifted thistles. If Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter, sifted a sieve of unsifted thistles, where is the sieve of unsifted thistles Theophilus Thistle, the thistle sifter, sifted?

But what a language this was! For a foreigner, English is like a huge building which one has to get to know and, as somebody remarked, the closer you come to it, the taller and more daunting it appears. (One sign of its sheer size was that my best two-volume English—Russian dictionary contained 160,000 entries, compared with only 60,000 in a French—Russian dictionary of similar scope.)

Russian?" I asked dumbly. I do that sometimes.

Obsession is, in any case, the premonition of the existence of an individual language, an irreproducible language through the attentive use of which we will be able to uncover the truth. We must follow this premonition into regions that to others might seem absurd and mad. I don't know why this language of truth sounds angelic to some, while to others it changes into mathematical signs or notations. But there are also those to whose whim it speaks in a very strange way.

S?owa s? jak jaszczurki, potrafi? uciec z ka?dego zamkni?cia.

Gdyby umie? spojrze? tak, jak Jenta to widzi, zobaczy?oby si?, ?e w istocie ?wiat sk?ada si? ze s?ów, które raz powiedziane, roszcz? sobie odt?d pretensje do wszelkiego porz?dku i wszystko wydaje si? dzia? pod ich dyktando, wszystko im podlega.

every single Person has their own expression which he or she overuses. Or uses incorrectly. These words or phrases are the key to their intellect. Mr. "Apparently," Mr. "Generally," Mrs. "Probably," Mr. "Fucking," Mrs. "Don't You Think?," Mr. "As If.

Mówi? do kogo?, kto nie rozumie, to próbowa? otworzy? zamek ?d?b?em trawy, to kroi? chleb ga??zk? bazylii, wkr?ca? ?arówk? w ptasie gniazdo, wk?ada? dyskietk? mi?dzy dwa kamienie.

How wonderful – to translate from one language to another, and by so doing to bring people closer to one another – what a beautiful idea.

Words are not nobilities that want their genealogical trees we traced. Words are merchants, swift and useful, now here, now there.

In the beginning, long ago, he fled his country, one of those bland, flat communist lands, and as a young immigrant got hired to work on a whaling ship. At that time, he had only a few English words under his belt, intermittent pinpoints between "yes" and "no," just exactly enough to answer the simple grunts the guys on the ship would exchange among themselves.

Izydor couldn't care less about either the Party or going to church. Now he needed time for thinking, remembering Ruta, for reading, for learning German, for writing letters, collecting stamps, staring at his skylight, and gradually, idly sensing the order of the universe.

the vastness of these contents cannot be traversed from word to word- you have to step in between the words, into the unfathomable abysses between ideas. With every step we'll slip and fall.

eye that's constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences; in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality—its inexpressibility.

Dievas rašo kaire ranka veidrodiniu b?du.

Drogi Mieczys?awie (...) czy zgodzi si? pan ze mn?, ?e cz?owiek istnieje tylko w j?zyku? Wszystko poza j?zykiem jest zwierz?ce i niezró?nicowane. To j?zyk sprawia, ?e jeste?my tym, kim jeste?my.