Quotes About Language

Es kann sein, daß wir dann eines Tages aus unserer Alltäglichkeit herausrücken und in die Macht der Dichtung einrücken müssen, daß wir nie mehr so in die Alltäglichkeit zurückkehren, wie wir sie verlassen haben.

If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found the time to conquer the world.

For the Greeks, beauty is truth; for the Hebrews, truth is beauty.

Wann, endlich, wird diese Seite auch für deutsche Leser benutzerfreundlich? kann doch nicht so schwer sein.

Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland. Der Eichenbaum Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft. Es war ein Traum. Das küßte mich auf deutsch, und sprach auf deutsch (Man glaubt es kaum, Wie gut es klang) das Wort: Ich liebe dich! Es war ein Traum.

Von allen Welten, die der Mensch erschaffen hat, ist die der Bücher die Gewaltigste.

Frauen stünde gelehrt sein nicht? Die Wahrheit zu sagen, nützlich ist es: Es steht Männern so wenig wie Fraun.

The language of roses shifts under our feet. It blows in and out like the wind. It carries the fragrance of the flower and then it is gone...It is how we learn to speak about something that is disappearing as we say its name.

Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart.

Words are the mind's wings, are they not?

There is nothing more beautiful, I think, than the evanescent fleeting images and sentiments presented by a language one is just becoming familiar with—ideas that flit across the mental sky, shaped and tinted by capricious fancy.

It seems to me that the great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas

At first I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing every word I came across — noun, genitive, singular, feminine — when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it — order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me.

I was rather unwilling to study Latin grammar. It seemed absurd to waste time analyzing, every word I came across—noun, genitive, singular, feminine—when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it—order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby.

It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation.

Human writing reflects that of the universe; it is its translation, but also its metaphor: it says something totally different, and it says the same thing.

When you're writing, you are robbed of your delivery.

I like English, and I like writing essays, and that kind of stuff.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

Nu shu means women's writing. And it was a secret writing system that was invented by women, used by women and kept a secret by women in one very remote county in China for a thousand years. It's the only language that was invented and used by women to have been found anywhere in the world.

The language has got to be fully alive - I can't bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don't see why any reader should put up with it.

It's a complicated process being so bilingual. Sometimes it's a mere word or sentence that comes to me, if I'm writing the book in English, in French. It's not always easy to deal with. Sometimes even during an interview somebody can ask me a question in English that I want to answer in French and vice versa - that's the story of my life!

Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics, and the narrative is unmistakable.

Genes are like the story, and DNA is the language that the story is written in.