Quotes About Language

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much.

Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn't very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?

Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.

Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points.

Una palabra no es más que un medio para llegar a un fin. Es una abstracción. De forma parecida a un poste indicador, señala algo más allá de sí misma. La palabra miel no es miel. Usted puede estudiar y hablar de la miel todo el tiempo que quiera, pero no la conocerá realmente hasta que la pruebe. Después

It has been said: "Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.

The German word for breathing—atmen—is derived from the ancient Indian (Sanskrit) word Atman, meaning the indwelling divine spirit or God within.

Emotion literally means "disturbance." The word comes from the Latin emovere, meaning "to disturb.

Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don't know what it is.

Some kid was shoving muggles. Marijuana, Dad. We call it—" "I know the names," Byrnes said.

You say 'erbs, and we say herbs… because there's a fucking 'h' in it!

The word itself—dyslexia—is ironically very hard for dyslexic people to spell correctly

Ce qui m'affecte au plus profond, c'est qu'un vocabulaire trompeur remporte la victoire sur le vocabulaire normal. Le triomphe de la force est terrible; le triomphe de la force dans et par le mensonge est horrible.

Teach me to speak the language of men.

guided entirely by telepathic means. This power is wonderfully developed in all Martians, and accounts largely for the simplicity of their language and the relatively few spoken words exchanged even in long conversations.

His language was, as I say, under great provocation, violent and unusual. He had a trick of using words which never were on land or sea, and illustrating his instruction or his admonition with the quaintest phraseology.

The troll language was very difficult to learn, bearing no relation to Njorden or any other language I had heard... As I learned more and more, I was reminded of times I had to pick out the stitches of a particularly complicated piece of sewing. One word might unravel a whole set of words, and then I'd come to a knot and have to begin all over again.

An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

She sang, of course, M'ama! and not he loves me, since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs;

Superficially so like them all, and so eager to outdo them in detachment and adaptability, ridiculing the prejudices he had shaken off, and the people to whom he belonged, he still kept, under his easy pliancy, the skeleton of old faiths and old fashions. He talks every language as well as the rest of us, Susy had once said of him, but at least he talks one language better than the others.

It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank; but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.

and I know how names can alter the colour of beliefs.

When she said to him once It looks as if it was painted! it seemed to Ethan that the art of definition could go no farther, and that words had at last been found to utter his secret souls.