Quotes About Language

This paraphrase not only sounds rationalistic but is meant to be so, for despite every effort the modern mind no longer understands our two-thousand-year-old theological language unless it "accords with reason." As a result, the danger that lack of understanding will be replaced by lip-service, affectation, and forced belief or else by resignation and indifference has long since come to pass.

Jung's search for the soul, then, stands at one with the search for appropriately dialogical and differentiated language.

Emily swore and he was impressed; he'd never thought to string cocksuckingsonofabitch together in one sentence. He couldn't help himself; the snort of laughter escaped before he could hold it in.

Joe had always considered individual words as finite units of currency, and he believed in savings.

up' is from when a bird has eaten too much of his kill and doesn't want to hunt or do anything for a while," she said. "And 'under my thumb' and 'wrapped around his little finger' are from holding a falcon tight to your fist by its jesses so it can't fly. Those terms were in Shakespeare's plays and until then they weren't common usage.

Inuit people had scores of words to describe snow, and that had always impressed

One can speak without understanding. What

Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

Quando se deseja realmente dizer alguma coisa, as palavras são inúteis. Remexo o cérebro e elas vêm, não raras, mas toneladas. Deixam sempre um gosto de poeira na boca - a poeira do que se tentava expressar, e elas dissolveram. Quanto mais palavras ocorrem para vestir uma idéia, mais essa idéia resiste a ser identificada. As sucessivas roupas sufocam a sua nudez. E todas as palavras são uma grande bolha de sabão, às vezes brilhante, mas circundando o vazio.

You can visualize this shift by using Google's Ngram Viewer2. This tool allows you to search Google's vast corpus of digitized books to see how often selected phrases turn up in published writing over time.

the urge to bloviate).

I never have found the perfect quote. At best I have been able to find a string of quotations which merely circle the ineffable idea I seek to express.

L'universo esprimerà se stesso fin tanto che qualcuno potrà dire "io leggo dunque esso scrive

ASSOCIATION COPY (excerpt) Who can help the heart, which is grand and full of gestures? … The whole year I spent loving him, something splendid as lemons, sour and bright and leading my tongue toward new language, was on the book shelf… We make habits out of words. I grew accustomed to his, the way they spooned me into sleep so many times.

No es lo mismo estar dormido que estar durmiendo, de la misma manera que no es lo mismo estar jodido que estar jodiendo. -- En respuesta al senador y mosén Lluis María Xirinacs que le recriminaba estar dormido en su escaño del senado. --

So much of medicine is translation disguised as insight. You tell the doctor what's wrong with you in English and she tells you back in Greek, as the joke goes. Which is not to say that words can't taste like medicine. Placebo, in Latin, means "I shall be pleasing.

I don't know if it becomes literature...I just know the two added words cause me to look at the ordinary sentences differently. And quite honestly, I find that to be magical!

What I didn't understand was that in spite of their power, word meanings are sometimes hidden or disguised.

Words, Sang Ly, are not only powerful, they are more valuable than gold.

El amor es, en muchas cosas, como la música: llega allí donde las palabras sobran

Words are animals, alive with a will of their own

Often, knowing the language of a given prediction is more important than understanding exactly what a person says.

Girlfriend is such a stupid word. I couldn't stand calling her that. So, we had to get married, so I could call her 'wife.

You talked to me, but you didn't. I could see you having these two-sided conversations. The things you wanted to say to me. And the words that actually came out.