Quotes About Language

So he has found something he hadn't noticed before. He has to light a cigarette, he's so excited. He looks at that mysterious word, it will guide him now, he'll let it up with the wind like a kite and follow it. "Kairos," Kunicki reads, "Kairos," repeating it, unsure how it's pronounced. It has to be Greek, he thinks happily, Greek, and he dives into his bookshelves, but there's no Greek dictionary there, only Useful Latin Phrases, a

For it is God's business to create, and people's business to name.

We speak of grown-ups being "tall," but a child is "long.

In fact, no real heresy could ever come about in Polish. By its nature, the Polish language is obedient to every orthodoxy.

He also gave her the name of his illness, but in Polish, so she had no idea what it was, because she just didn't know the Polish name for it. "Do you remember our promise?" he wrote.

Ten, kto nie nauczy? si? mówi?, zostanie na zawsze uwi?ziony w pu?apce.

[To Dr. Johnson:] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.

Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a person of the opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment recall

Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person's eyes.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

The minute a phrase becomes current, it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

I would never use a long word where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who 'ligate' arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

Carve every word before you let it fall.

In Takeuchi's opinion, the word "spirit" is derived from the Latin word "spiro" (to breathe).

Man's command of the language is most important. Next to kissing, it's the most exciting form of communication. – Oren Arnold

Ogni responsabilità è della donna, ogni sofferenza, ogni insulto. Puttana, le dite se ha fatto l'amore con voi. La parola puttano non esiste nel dizionario: usarla è un errore di glottologia.

Speaking of racism in relation to a religion, not a race, is a big disservice to the language and to the intelligence.

quell'Italia, l'Italia povera che ne consegue. Povera nell'onore, nell'orgoglio, nella conoscenza, e perfino nella grammatica.