Quotes About Language

What good to your words do if they can't understand you? [—Erykah Badu]

What good do your words do if they can't understand you? [—Erykah Badu]

You can change your world by changing your words... Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical.

Pay attention to what you're saying. Are you blessing your life? Or are you cursing it?

Psychiatric diagnosis is at best a common language, and current categories should not be treated as "real.

I wish there were a better than 'sorry'. But then, I'd probably need a better word than that.

A népnyelv e kifinomult szellem számára mindent túl közvetlenné, túl személyessé, túl reálissá tett volna. Szüksége volt arra a homályos, távolságtartó, könny? fátyolra, amelyet a latin nyelv vont a dolgok köré.

A tudat, hogy szavunk az egész világhoz azonnal eljuthat, olyan ösztönzés, mely öntudatlanul is hatással van a megnyilatkozás módjára, s olyan gazdagság is egyben, melyet csak a legnagyobb szellemóriások viselhetnek el büntetlenül.

Molitveni jezik jedini je jezik u kojem nema jezi?nih zabrana. Kako je ve? re?eno, on je obuhvatniji od jezika vjere koja je sigurna u samu sebe. U jeziku molitve može se naime re?i i to da se ne može vjerovati.

Radi se mnogo više - i to isklju?ivo - o pitanju kako uop?e valja govoriti o Bogu pred neizmjernom poviješ?u trpljenja svijeta, 'njegovoga' svijeta. To je pitanje, kako ga ja vidim, glavno pitanje teologije; ona ga ne smije niti eliminirati niti svojim odgovorom prepuniti.

Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race.

Poetry is mother-tongue of the human race; as gardening is older than agriculture; painting than writing; song than declamation; parables,—than deductions; barter,—than trade.

Poetry is the mother tongue of the human race, as the garden is older than the ploughed field; painting, than writing; song, than declamation; parables, than logical deduction; barter, than commerce. A deeper sleep was the repose of our most distant ancestors, and their movement was a frenzied dance. Seven days they would sit in the silence of thought or wonder; -- and would open their mouths -- to winged sentences.

Everything that man in the beginning heard, saw with his eyes, contemplated, and felt with his hands, was a living word. For God was the Word. With this Word in his mouth and in his heart, the origin of language was as natural, as near and easy, as child's play.

The purity of a language dispossesses it of its wealth; a correctness that is all too rigid takes away its strengh and manhood. In a city as big as Paris, forty learned men are procured each year, at no expense, who infalliably know what is pure and polite in their mother tongue and what is neccessary for the monopoly of this junkshop.

Whoever writes in a foreign language must like a lover accommodate his mode of thinking to it. -- Whoever writes in his native language has the authority of a husband in his own house, if he is in command of it.

Poetry is the mother-tongue of the human race; just as gardening is older than the cultivated field; painting than writing; song than declamation; parables than syllogisms; barter than trade

Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion, and without these three essential aspects of our nature, neither mind nor bond of society.

Not only is the whole faculty of thought dependent on language, but language is also the center of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.

What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not.

About the reason why scholars hold inclination towards Arabic as a heresy): [...] one must not accept the customs of a people whose language one loves, nor cover up small coups d'état with the gold plate of language, nor dupe young people and Maecenases into believing that one can fence as soon as one knows how to parry and thrust and hold the épée and body.

The most miraculous researchers into language are also, from time to time, the most impotent exegetes; -- the strongest lawgivers are the destroyers of their tables, or they will become one-eyed through the fault of their children.

We have been animals that move for a lot longer than we have been animals that talk and convey concepts,