Quotes About Language

Man's brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious attempt to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we still try.

The world is grown so full of dissimulation and compliment, that men's words are hardly any signification of their thoughts.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn't make any sense if quoted as it stands.

Does a name stick because it suits a man or does the man, unconsciously, evolve into his name?

It is the man determines what is said, not the words.

It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow so.

How many fine thoughts has every man had! How few fine thoughts are expressed!

Man's chiefest treasure is a sparing tongue.

The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind.

In what else, pray, does man differ from the other animals except in that he is used by words?

Love, yes. Word known to all men.

Beware of men who use words that relate pejoratively to females when describing the 'other side.

Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understanding of her language

You think about every piece of idiomatic speech adopted by white men over the past ten or twenty years; virtually all of it comes from hip-hop.

Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking. [Ger., Gewohnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hort, Es musse sich dabei doch auch was denken.]

Reasonable men are the best dictionaries of conversation.

The man who first abused his fellows with swear-words instead of bashing their brains out with a club should be counted among those who laid the foundations of civilization.

In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone-and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life-he [Churchill] mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

True eloquence forgoes eloquence.

I was born in Texas and I lived there 'till I was 8. Then I moved to the Dominican Republic with my mom, lived there for two years and forgot every word of English I knew.

Living with my mom, I saw how she used language to cross boundaries, handle situations, navigate the world.

I want to go to college to study journalism. I want to speak French fluently, to travel. My mom was a journalist and it's in my blood.

It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.