Quotes About Language

The Greek word clepsydra, given to ancient water clocks, comes from the amalgamation of the Greek words for water and to steal.

He let the pieces of the napkin flutter to the floor and said something strange about words being good for saying what things are, but sometimes they don't function for what things aren't.

Known to Israelis as the city of Akko. Known to Palestinians still as Akka. Known beyond Israel and Palestine as Acre: a mosaic town with a low skyline of mosque and flat roof and synagogue, a town of bells and loudspeakers and muezzin calls, where the warm-water wind retreats the tongue and sneaks multiple sounds into the throat: Acre, Akko, Akka.

Rache,' is the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel

Quando le parole perdono di senso, i popoli perdono la loro libertà.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.

Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know more.

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.

Writing cannot express all words, words cannot encompass all ideas.

Where words lose their meaning, people lose their lives.

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish.

When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom.

Language is insight itself.

The Master said, "How could one but comply with what model sayings have to say? But the real value lies in reforming one's ways. How could one but find pleasure in polite language? But the real value lies in drawing out its meaning. What can possibly be done with people who find pleasure in polite language but do not draw out its meaning, or who comply with model sayings but do not reform their ways.

Speaking (dao )" is a "guiding discourse (dao )." Said a different way, language is both performative and prescriptive; it both does something to the world and recommends how it should be.

Our own thesis was sketched in the Introduction: the classical written Chinese language—the language in which the Analects was composed—is unique, being sharply distinct not only from all non-Sinitic languages but from spoken Chinese as well (ancient and modern), and that the differences between the two Chinese languages are of greater linguistic and philosophical significance than has been generally noticed.

At best she's a scrawny, hollow-eyed croneling." "Croneling?" John tilted his head in perplexity. "Croneling. Noun. One who has yet to achieve cronehood. The adolescent phase of the British crone," Avery lectured.

Moom' and 'tomb' actually rhyme, which is something Dickinson hardly ever did, preferring near-rhymes such as 'mat/gate', 'tune/sun,' and 'balm/hermaphrodite.

Grandmother. Agnes had not said anything like "grandmother." The word hadn't even existed until the eighteenth century

Translation work involves knowing not just the structure of the language to be translated, but the cultural framework that surrounds it.

Translators need a lot of skills besides fluency in at least two languages; translators need to be excellent writers in their native language and need to be interested in and skilled at terminology research using both paper dictionaries and the Internet.

I look for the words, Professor. I look for the words because I believe that the words is the way to your heart.

The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the name of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.

Words are things. The words he is in possession of he cannot be deprived of. Their authority transcends his ignorance of their meaning.