Language Quotes - Page 12

• Language is by its very nature a communal thing.

  T. E. Hulme

  Common Language

  T. E. Hulme, Patrick McGuinness (2003). “Selected Writings”, p.78, Psychology Press

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• The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

  George Eliot

  Writing, Simple, Language Words

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• Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

  Ezra Pound

  Inspirational, Hygiene, Degrees

  How to Read pt. 2 (1931)

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• England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Country, Two, America

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• We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

  Booker T. Washington

  Communication, Vocabulary, Pockets

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• I speak two languages, Body and English.

  Mae West

  Two, Body, Speak

  "Body Language Pocketbook". Book by Max A. Eggert (p. 17), September 1, 2012.

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• Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise - that which is common to you, me, and everybody.

  T. E. Hulme

  Common, Compromise, Body Language

  T. E. Hulme, Patrick McGuinness (2003). “Selected Writings”, p.78, Psychology Press

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• Language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

  Abraham Maslow

  Communication, Way, Hiding

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• C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

  Bjarne Stroustrup

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  Bjarne Stroustrup's FAQ: Did you really say that?, www.stroustrup.com.

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• One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.

  John Berger

  Home, Men, Dwelling Place

  John Berger (2014). “And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos”, p.78, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Positive, Wise, Wisdom

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• A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Ignorant, Foreign Language

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.112

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• Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

  Aphra Behn

  Money, Speak, Nations

  1678 The Rover, pt.2, act 3, sc.1.

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• High thoughts must have high language.

  Aristophanes

  Book, Communication, Beer

  Aristophanes (1962). “Four comedies”

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• Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

  Roland Barthes

  Desire, Skins, Language And Power

  "A Lover's Discourse (Talking)". Bok by Roland Barthes, 1977.

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• Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Literature, Outcomes, Difficulty

  Elizabeth Bowen (1950). “Collected Impressions”

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• There is the fear, common to all English-only speakers, that the chief purpose of foreign languages is to make fun of us. Otherwise, you know, why not just come out and say it?

  Barbara Ehrenreich

  Fun, Purpose, Why Not

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.

  Roger Ascham

  Men, Language Words, Wings

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• Languages are the pedigree of nations.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pedigree, Nations

  In James Boswell 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (1785) 18 September 1773

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• No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

  Henry Adams

  Truth, Mean, Men

  The Education of Henry Adams ch. 31 (1907)

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• Language is called the garment of thought: however, it should rather be, language is the flesh-garment, the body, of thought.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Body, Flesh, Garments

  'Sartor Resartus' (1834) bk. 1, ch. 11

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• Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose type of things through all degrees.

  William Wordsworth

  Play, Degrees, Ease

  'To the Same Flower [Daisy]' (With little here to do, 1807)

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• I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

  Maya Angelou

  People, Admire, Dare

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• It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.

  Michael Gove

  Brain, Cases, Results

  "Michael Gove proposes teaching foreign languages from age five" by Patrick Wintour, Nicholas Watt, www.theguardian.com. September 30, 2011.

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• The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.

  Derek Walcott

  Imagination, Special, Property

  "Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Caribbean Poet, Dies at 87". The Paris Review Interview, www.latimes.com. March 17, 2017.

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