English Language Quotes - Page 15

• George Orwell once blamed the demise of the English language on politics. It's quite possible he never read a prospectus.

  Arthur Levitt Jr

  Demise, Language

  4 Copy quote

• "Children, don't speak so coarsely," said Mr Webster, who had a vague notion that some supervision should be exercised over his daughters' speech, and that a line should be drawn, but never knew quite when to draw it. He had allowed his daughters to use his library without restraint, and nothing is more fatal to maidenly delicacy of speech than the run of a good library.

  Robertson Davies

  Daughter, Running, Children

  "Tempest-Tost" by Robertson Davies, (Part 1), 1951.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?

  George Orwell

  Facts, Language, Said

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.324, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart" - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

  Brené Brown

  Latin, Heart, Stories

  "The power of vulnerability". TED Talk, www.ted.com. June 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Particularly for English people, Shakespeare is always at the forefront of both drama and the English language. He's always been there. I can't remember starting school and not learning about him.

  Jamie Campbell Bower

  Drama, School, People

  "Jamie Campbell Bower Interview" by Anne Brodie, www.askmen.com.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple “first” things.

  Greg McKeown

  Reality, Talking, Years

  "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less". Book by Greg McKeown, April 15, 2014.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• First of all, there was a volcano of words, an eruption of words that Shakespeare had never used before that had never been used in the English language before. It's astonishing. It pours out of him.

  Stephen Greenblatt

  Volcanoes, Eruption, Firsts

  25 Copy quote

• English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.

  H. Beam Piper

  Warrior, Trying, Maids

  8 Copy quote

• Average. It was the worst, most disgusting word in the English language. Nothing meaningful or worthwhile ever came from that word.

  Portia de Rossi

  Meaningful, Average, Language

  Portia de Rossi (2011). “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain”, p.39, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the American people get through with the English language, it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.

  Finley Peter Dunne

  Running, People, Musical

  8 Copy quote

• Amid chaos of images, we value coherence. We believe in the printed word. And we believe in clarity. And we believe in immaculate syntax. And in the beauty of the English language.

  William Shawn

  Believe, Printed Word, Syntax

  11 Copy quote

• Give your children regular, daily doses of Vitamin N. This vital nutrient consists simply of the most character-building two-letter word in the English language No...Unfortunately, many, if not most, of today's children suffer from Vitamin N deficiency. They've been overindulged by well-meaning parents who've given them far too much of what they want and far too little of what they truly need.

  John Rosemond

  Children, Character, Parenting

  54 Copy quote

• He is, I think, already pondering a magisterial project: that of buggering the English language, the ultimate revenge of the colonialised.

  Angela Carter

  Revenge, Thinking, Language

  Angela Carter (1993). “Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings”, Vintage Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A being who can create a race of men devoid of real freedom and inevitably foredoomed to be sinners, and then punish them for being what he has made them, may be omnipotent and various other things, but he is not what the English language has always intended by the adjective holy.

  John Stuart Mill

  God, Religious, Real

  14 Copy quote

• ... in the nineteen-thirties ... the most casual reader of murder mysteries could infallibly detect the villain, as soon as there entered a character who had recently washed his neck and did not commit mayhem on the English language.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Character, Murder Mysteries, Nineteen

  4 Copy quote

• The most important word in the English language is hope.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Hope, Important, Language

  4 Copy quote

• In #‎ France we have a saying, 'Joie de Vivre,' which actually doesn't exist in the English language. It means looking at your life as something that is to be taken with great pleasure and enjoy it.

  Mireille Guiliano

  Taken, Mean, France

  57 Copy quote

• Empty your knapsack of all adjectives, adverbs and clauses that slo your stride and weaken your pace. Travel light. Remember the most memorable sentences in the English language are also the shortest: "The King is dead" and "Jesus wept."

  Bill Moyers

  Jesus, Kings, Memorable

  17 Copy quote

• The truest and greatest Poetry, (while subtly and necessarily always rhythmic, and distinguishable easily enough) can never again, in the English language, be express'd in arbitrary and rhyming metre, any more than the greatest eloquence, or the truest power and passion.

  Walt Whitman

  Passion, Arbitrary, Rhyming

  Walt Whitman (2012). “Specimen Days & Collect”, p.323, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the English language, I can love my car, or my house, or my daughter, or traveling, but in Greek and how I grew up, love is described with different words.

  Yanni

  Daughter, Love Is, Car

  "Yanni: A Global Inspiration". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. September 9, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The ten most powerful two-letter words in the English language are: If it is to be, it is up to me.

  Harvey Mackay

  Powerful, Two, Letters

  "Harvey Mackay Book Interview : The Mackay MBA of selling in the real world". Interview with David Dalka, www.daviddalka.com. November 29, 2011.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe it is essential to have English as the official language of our National Government, for the English language is the tie that binds the millions of immigrants who come to America from divergent backgrounds. We should, and do, encourage immigrants to maintain and share their traditions, customs and religions, but the use of English is essential for immigrants and their children to participate fully in American society and achieve the American dream.

  Jim Sensenbrenner

  Dream, Children, Believe

  4 Copy quote

• Ulysses is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

  Tom Paulin

  Lying, Racism, Challenges

  "Not one of us" by Tom Paulin, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2000.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We the undersigned, intend to establish an instruction and training institution which differs from the common elementary schools principally in that it will embrace, outside of (in addition to) the general and elementary curriculum, all branches of the classical high school, which are necessary for a true Christian and scientific education, such as: Religion, the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French and English languages; History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, natural history, Introduction to Philosophy, Music, and Drawing.

  C. F. W. Walther

  Christian, Philosophy, Latin

  12 Copy quote

• While he has not, in my hearing, spoken the English language, he makes it perfectly plain that he understands it. And he uses his ears, tail, eyebrows, various rumbles and grunts, the slant of his great cold nose or a succession of heartrending sighs to get his meaning across.

  Jean Little

  Dog, Eyebrows, Tails

  Jean Little (1990). “Stars Come Out Within”, Markham, Ont. : Viking

  16 Copy quote

  Show source