English Language Quotes - Page 12

• However virile the English language may be, it can never become the language of the masses of India.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  India, May, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1981). “Collected Works”

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• Ram Mohan Roy would have been a greater reformer and Lokmanya Tilak a greater scholar if they had not to start with the handicap of having to think in English and transmit their thoughts chiefly in English.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Thinking, Rams, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1947). “Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi”

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• It would be a sad day for India if it has to inherit the English scale and the English tastes so utterly unsuitable to the Indian environment.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  India, Would Be, Taste

  Mahatma Gandhi (1965). “Collected Works”

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• Second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians. Second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups'.

  Jeb Bush

  Groups, Generations, Language

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• There may be no more-radioactive term in the English language than what we now almost always refer to as the 'n-word' - itself a coy means of linguistic sidestepping that is a sign of how perilous it is to utter the thing in full, even in conversations about language.

  Jeffrey Kluger

  Mean, May, Language

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• Words fail me sometimes. I have read most every word in the Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language, but I still have trouble making them come when I want them to. Right now I want a word that describes the feeling you get – a cold sick feeling deep down inside – when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don’t want it to, but you can’t stop it. And you know you will never be the same again.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Sick, Feelings, Want

  Jennifer Donnelly (2015). “A Gathering Light”, p.5, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

  Lynne Truss

  Use, World, Ends

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• In the English language, it all comes down to this: Twenty-six letters, when combined correctly, can create magic. Twenty -six letters form the foundation of a free, informed society.

  John Grogan

  Magic, Foundation, Twenties

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• The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Nine, Helping

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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• I don't procrastinate because I love the English language and the process of storytelling, and I'm always curious to see what will come to me next. If you procrastinate a lot, you might be one who loves having written, but doesn't so much like writing.

  Dean Koontz

  Writing, Might, Next

  "Interview with the Master of Suspense, Dean Koontz (part 1)". Interview with Trisha Sugarek, www.writeratplay.com. June 28, 2014.

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• Alexander von Humboldt’s wide-ranging Views of Nature is a masterpiece of nineteenth-century natural history, at once science and art. Mark W. Person’s stunning new translation makes the wonders of this classic accessible to the English-language world of the present.

  Daniel Walker Howe

  Art, Views, World

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• I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities.

  William Labov

  America, Community, Minorities

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• The reaction to any word may be, in an individual, either a mob-reaction or an individual reaction. It is up to the individual to ask himself: Is my reaction individual, or am I merely reacting from my mob-self? When it comes to the so-called obscene words, I should say that hardly one person in a million escapes mob-reaction.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Self, May, Language

  D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2004). “D. H. Lawrence: Late Essays and Articles”, p.238, Cambridge University Press

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• One man's frankness is another man's vulgarity.

  Kevin Smith

  Men, Language, Vulgarity

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• The existing phrasebooks are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell you what to say.

  Mark Twain

  Fall, Skins, Legs

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.3305, Delphi Classics

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• If a language is corruptible, then a constitution written in that language is corruptible.

  Robert Breault

  Constitution, Language, Written

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• It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Philosophical, Writing, Talking

  1911 Introduction to Mathematics.

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• Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Past, Errors, Language

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.57, Open Road Media

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• You know, we have main English language parties, federalist parties, and traditionally the ones to watch would be the Conservatives, who form the government, and then the Liberals.

  Rick Mercer

  Party, Government, Watches

  "Rick Mercer, Hot On The Canadian Campaign Trail". "Weekend Edition" with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. April 23, 2011.

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• I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.

  Chinua Achebe

  Home, Weight, Able

  "Chinua Achebe: A life in writing" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. December 13, 2010.

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• In 1776, at the point of severance, except for an infusion of words from east coast Indian languages, the English language of North America was not in any radical way dissimilar from that of what the American settlers called the mother country.

  Robert Burchfield

  Mother, Country, America

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• At all periods of the [English] language it is difficult to assign a beginning date to most new words and meanings. They tend to slip into the language silently, and are placed in date order only when scholars subsequently get to work.

  Robert Burchfield

  Order, Language, Periods

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• I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

  Diane Wakoski

  Wish, Language, British

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• No' is the second shortest word in the English language, but one of the hardest to say.

  Raymond Arroyo

  Language, Hardest

  "The Power of 'No'” by Raymond J. Arroyo, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 9, 2012.

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• Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.

  F. Murray Abraham

  Men, Phones, Trying

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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