English Language Quotes - Page 5

• This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Training, Belief, Language

  Mahatma Gandhi (1968). “The Message of Mahatma Gandhi”

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• I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.

  Drew Barrymore

  Powerful, Kids, Thinking

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• I do not know if there is a more dreadful word in the English language than that word "lost."

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Losing Someone, Feeling Lost

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• Net neutrality: The only two words that promise more boredom in the English language are 'featuring Sting,'

  John Oliver

  Two, Boredom, Promise

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• There are people who look forward to spending their sunset years in the sunshine; it is my own retirement dream to await my death indoors, dragging strangers up dusty staircases while coughing up one of the most thrilling phrases in the English language: 'It was on this spot…' My fantasy is to one day become a docent.

  Sarah Vowell

  Dream, Retirement, Sunset

  FaceBook post by Sarah Vowell from May 06, 2010

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• The four sweetest words in the English language — 'You wore me down.'

  Aziz Ansari

  Four, Language, Sweetest

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• I'm talking to a journalist and I really have nothing to say anymore, this is already uncomfortable. I feel the pain coming already. The brutal pain, when one day I should read your edit of whatever I say, because no matter what I say, no matter how I say it, no matter its tone, its frequency range, its decibel level or the way in which I put the words together, no matter my intentions and no matter the truth. What I'll read one day will be a chastised, manipulated abortion of your misunderstandings, your manipulations, your agenda and your amateur use of the English language.

  Vincent Gallo

  Pain, Talking, Abortion

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• There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.

  J.K. Simmons

  Jobs, Two, Language

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• Congratulations, Congress! 77% disapproval rating! You may be about to become the English language's most offensive C-word.

  John Oliver

  Congratulations, May, Language

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• Grasp the subject, the words will follow.

  Cato the Elder

  Communication, Self Improvement, Language

  Quoted in Caius Julius Victor, Ars Rhetorica

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• We do not for example say that the person has a perfect knowledge of some language L similar to English but still different from it. What we say is that the child or foreigner has a 'partial knowledge of English' or is 'on his or her way' towards acquiring knowledge of English, and if they reach this goal, they will then know English.

  Noam Chomsky

  Children, Perfect, Goal

  Noam Chomsky (1986). “Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use”, p.16, Greenwood Publishing Group

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• The New Oxford Dictionary has declared Sarah Palin's word 'refudiate' to be the 2010 Word of the Year. Palin was honored and said she would do her best to 'dismangle' the English language.

  Conan O'Brien

  Years, Oxford, Language

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• I think one of the best words in the English language is compassion. I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.

  Michael Crawford

  Thinking, Compassion, Differences

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I love to laugh, it's my main thing. I love to abuse the English language.

  Dan Fogelberg

  Love, Laughing, Abuse

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• He wished someone in the course of history had thought of striking that word and all its derivatives from the English Language - happy, happier, happiest, happiness. What the devil did the words really mean anyway? Why not just the word pleasure, which was far more... well, pleasant.

  Mary Balogh

  Mean, Devil, Why Not

  Mary Balogh (2009). “Then Comes Seduction”, p.230, Dell

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• It's difficult for me to feel that a solid page without the breakups of paragraphs can be interesting. I break mine up perhaps sooner than I should in terms of the usage of the English language.

  A. E. van Vogt

  Break Up, Breakup, Interesting

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• If the English language had been properly organized ... then there would be a word which meant both 'he' and 'she', and I could write, 'If John or Mary comes heesh will want to play tennis', which would save a lot of trouble.

  A. A. Milne

  Writing, Play, History

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• I was also in love with the English language.

  Dick Schaap

  Language

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• The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.

  Cyril Connolly

  Rivers, Sitting, Tipping

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• Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is.

  Walter Kaufmann

  Writing, Men, World

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• Language forces us to perceive the world as man presents it to us.

  Julia Penelope

  Men, World, Language

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• I don't think there's any words in the English language to explain what it's -what it's like to- to sit on Texas death row and your thoughts are laying on that gurney, convicted but innocent and being put to death.

  Kerry Max Cook

  Thinking, Texas, Death Penalty

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• Dude, the bush is ready. Why you still beating around it?” “I’ve lived a long time, kid, and I’ve never heard anyone mutilate the English language quite like you.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Kids, Long, Language

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• You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Writing, Character, Mean

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• The American idiom has much to offer us that the English language has never heard of

  William Carlos Williams

  Language, Heard, Idiom

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