Quotes About Language

You (Pindar) who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything.

'twas bryllig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths out grabe.

Dialect words - those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catch words.

Many terms which have now dropped out of favour will be revived, and those that are at present respectable, will drop out, if useage so choose with whom resides the decision and the judgment and the code of speech.

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.

The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.

The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.

We must have a better word than "prefabricated", why not "ready-made"?

Words are the small change of thought.

Words should be weighed and not counted.

Since the concepts people live by are derived only from perceptions and from language and since the perceptions are received and interpreted only in light of earlier concepts, man comes pretty close to living in a house that language built.

If a conceptual distinction is to be made, the machinery for making it ought to show itself in language. If a distinction cannot be made in language, it cannot be made conceptually.

Often I am struck in amazement about a word: I suddenly realize that the complete arbitrariness of our language is but a part of the arbitrariness of our own world in general.

Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.

Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye.

Who does not know another language, does not know his own.

To me, the term 'middle-class' connotes a safe, comfortable, middle-of-the road policy. Above all, our language is 'middle-class' in the middle of our road. To drive it to one side or the other or even off the road, is the noblest task of the future.

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.

A language is a dialect with its own army and navy.