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Quote by Mark Twain

“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!”

Quote by Mark Twain

Author

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was a renowned American author and humorist in the 19th century. His works are characterized by humor, satire, and profound social insight, with notable novels such as 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. more

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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.”

Men Used Lost Language Social Danger Civilization Elements Complicated Observation Rescue Oblivion Fragments Scope

Author:Victor Hugo

“Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.”

People Firsts States Purpose Individual Language Nations Term Half Particular Poet Machines Philosophical Perceive Abstract Enlightened Civilized Vocabulary Enlightened Society

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.”

Source: Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.”

Mean Doe Enough Seems Language Describing

Author:Paul de Man

“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.”

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Author:Virginia Woolf

“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”

Needs Use Language Path Creation Obligation Cows Whim

Author:E. B. White

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

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Author:James F. Cooper

“You reduce illegal immigration by making it harder to get jobs here, or easier to get jobs south of the border. This idea that we can't pass an immigration law until we hit some imaginary security target is just a way to derail reform.”

Way Ideas Jobs Law Security Easier Harder South Immigration Reform Borders Illegal Target Imaginary Illegal Immigration Immigration Laws

Author:Gail Collins

“There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.”

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Author:Elias Canetti

“Everything can change, but not the language that we carry inside us, like a world more exclusive and final than one's mother's womb.”

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Book:The Uses of Literature

Source: The Uses of Literature