Language Quotes - Page 32

• 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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• Writing fiction is a solitary occupation but not really a lonely one. The writer's head is mobbed with characters, images and language.

  Hilma Wolitzer

  Lonely, Writing, Character

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• For strictly scientific or technological purposes all this is irrelevant. On a pragmatic view, as on a religious view, theory and concepts are held in faith. On the pragmatic view the only thing that matters is that the theory is efficacious, that it 'works' and that the necessary preliminaries and side issues do not cost too much in time and effort. Beyond that, theory and concepts go to constitute a language in which the scientistic matters at issue can be formulated and discussed.

  Bertram Brockhouse

  Religious, Science, Views

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• It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Worst, Translations

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• The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.

  Steven Pinker

  Baby, Age, Tourists

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• A translation can never equal the original; it can approach it, and its quality can only be judged as to accuracy by how close it gets.

  Gregory Rabassa

  Quality, Equal, Accuracy

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• A translator is essentially a reader and we all read differently, except that a translator's reading remains in unchanging print

  Gregory Rabassa

  Reading, Unchanging, Print

  Gregory Rabassa (2006). “If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents”, p.89, New Directions Publishing

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• I have always maintained that translation is essentially the closest reading one can possibly give a text. The translator cannot ignore "lesser" words, but must consider every jot and tittle.

  Gregory Rabassa

  Reading, Giving, Translators

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• Translation is a disturbing craft because there is precious little certainty about what we are doing, which makes it so difficult in this age of fervent belief and ideology, this age or greed and screed.

  Gregory Rabassa

  Greed, Age, Crafts

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• The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life.

  Lewis Thomas

  Rest Of Life, Mark, Humans

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• A national language is a band of national union.

  Noah Webster

  Band, Unions, Translations

  Noah Webster (1951). “Dissertations on the English Language”

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• One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Vocabulary, Names, Needs

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• In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.

  Ferdinand de Saussure

  Would Be, Study, Affair

  Ferdinand de Saussure (2013). “Course in General Linguistics”, p.8, A&C Black

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• We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Inclusion, Exclusive

  "Senator Obama Says Dean Using 'Religion to Divide'" by Marc Morano, www.christianheadlines.com. June 9, 2005.

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• On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world.

  Wim Wenders

  Change, Ideas, People

  ""The culture of independent film criticism has gone down the drain"". Interview with Richard Phillips, www.wsws.org. January 10, 2000.

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• There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

  Mark Twain

  Queens, Hands, Gone

  Following the Equator ch. 24, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897)

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• To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost -that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization -is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.

  Victor Hugo

  Men, Civilization, Complicated

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

  Virginia Woolf

  Expression, Giving, Sound

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• The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay

  E. B. White

  Needs, Use, Cows

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

  James F. Cooper

  Ambition, Simplicity, Abuse

  "The American Democrat: Or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America". Book by James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.

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• I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sea, Heaven, Speech

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks: 1841-1843”, p.357, Harvard University Press

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• Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.

  Octavio Paz

  Fall, Past, Men

  Octavio Paz (1973). “Alternating Current”, p.48, Arcade Publishing

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• Why has mankind had such a craving to be imposed upon? Why this lust after imposing creeds, imposing deeds, imposing buildings, imposing language, imposing works of art? The thing becomes an imposition and a weariness at last. Give us things that are alive and flexible, which won't last too long and become an obstruction and a weariness. Even Michelangelo becomes at last a lump and a burden and a bore. It is so hard to see past him.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Art, Past, Long

  D. H. Lawrence, Simonetta de Filippis (2002). “Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays”, p.33, Cambridge University Press

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• Also, I think having a musicality about me, that helps in identifying different things in languages and getting them right.

  Toni Collette

  Thinking, Different, Helping

  "Toni Collette: Keeping Track Of Multiple Personalities". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. April 1, 2010.

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• 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.

  Oscar Wilde

  Animal, Action, Emotion

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated)”, p.1466, Delphi Classics

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