Language

“Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, as well as the significance of the results obtained. The more abstract his theory, the more imperative this obligation.”

“It does not seem likely [...] that there is any direct relation between the culture of a tribe and the language they speak, except in so far as the form of the language will be moulded by the state of the culture, but not in so far as a certain state of the culture is conditioned by the morphological traits of the language”

“The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.”

“The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else.”

“We think only through the medium of words.—Languages are true analytical methods.—Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method.—The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.”

“Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups.”

“The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.”

“Many languages fly around the worldsometimes of love”

“In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned.”

“Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.”

“Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.”

“Every time that the language question appears, in one mode or another, it signifies that a series of other problems are beginning to impose themselves: the formation and growth of the ruling class, the need to stabilize the most intimate and secure links between that ruling group and the popular national masses, that is, to reorganize cultural hegemony.”

“Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.”

“Prophets hold a key to the lock in a language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. This is not a mechanical universe.”

“The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds but a diversity of views of the world.”

“The people from Prague and other Czechs should be whipped who speak half Czech and half German (...) And who could enumerate how the Czech language has already been corrupted, so that the true Czech hears they speak, but he does not understand them. And from that arises envy, anger, conflict, strife and Czech humiliation.”

“Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.”

“I first said "No; that is the white man's God, and the white man's religion; and that God would not have anything to do with the Indians." …I thought that God could only understand English... I then met with Peter Jones, who was converted a few months before me, and, to my surprise, I hear him return thanks, at meal, in Ojibway. This was quite enough for me. I now saw that God could understand me in my Ojibway, and therefor went far into the woods and prayed, in the Ojibway tongue.”

“Language is the dress of thought.”

“There was a silence; then, clearing his throat, "Once upon a time," the Director began, "while our Ford was still on earth, there was a little boy called Reuben Rabinovitch. Reuben was the child of Polish-speaking parents."”

“We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s[emantic] r[eactions] and that the structure which a language exhibits, and impresses upon us unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around us.”

“Words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element — the one by which all the others are swayed.”

“… and French and Italian were, it must be owned, somewhat unnecessary to one who considered her own language an unnecessary fatigue.”

“Men learned to speak in order to understand one another. Cultural languages have lost the ability to help men to advance beyond the most rudimentary level and attain understanding. It seems that the time has come to learn to be silent once again.”

“Language was our secret weapon, and as soon we got language we became a really dangerous species.”

““Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.””

““Language is texture of images and music. We speak in images and rhythm, by taking help of words.””

““Chance of source language influencing the target language and that of the translator intervening onto the style of original writer are major challenges in literary translation.””

“Ebbinghaus: Language is a system of conventional signs that can be voluntarily produced at any time.”

“He has strangledHis language in his tears.”

“Thou whoreson Zed! thou unnecessary letter!”

“You taught me language; and my profit on'tFor learning me your language!”

“Fie, fie upon her!At every joint and motive of her body.”

“There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture.”

“Anyone who invents a language,” he said, “finds that it requires a suitable habitation and a history in which it can develop. A real language is never invented, of course. It is a natural thing. It is wrong to call the language you grow up speaking your native language. It is not. It is your first learnt language. It is a by-product of the total make-up of the animal.”

“We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings.”

“Language itself inevitably introduced an element of permanence into the world. For, although speech itself is transitory, the conventionalized sound symbols of language transcended time. ...To obtain a greater degree of permanence the time symbols of oral speech had to be converted into the space symbols of written speech. ...The crucial stage in the evolution of writing occurred when ideographs became phonograms...”

“Speech is the best show a man puts on.”

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other — by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.”

“Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.”

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.”

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

“For remember that in general we don't use language according to strict rules — it hasn't been taught us by means of strict rules, either. p. 25”

“An entire mythology is stored within our language.”

“But to restrict thinking to the patterns merely of English […] is to lose a power of thought which, once lost, can never be regained. It is the 'plainest' English which contains the greatest number of unconscious assumptions about nature. […] We handle even our plain English with much greater effect if we direct it from the vantage point of a multilingual awareness.”

“Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place, and company.”

“And who in time knows whither we may ventMay come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?”

“Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knowsWhere noun, and verb, and participle grows.”

“Language is fossil poetry.”

““A language, like a species, when extinct, never… reappears.””

“And don't confound the language of the nationWith long-tailed words in osity and ation.”

“Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.”

“We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s[emantic] r[eactions] and that the structure which a language exhibits, and impresses upon us unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around us.”

“Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels.”

“No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached”

“Syllables govern the world.”

“Don Chaucer, well of English undefyledOn Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.”

“Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.”

“From purest wells of English undefiledThe wit and wisdom of New England folk.”

“Oft on the dappled turf at easeLoose type of things through all degrees.”