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Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born on August 28, 1749, and died on March 22, 1832, was a prominent German writer, thinker, and scientist. He is one of the greatest writers in German literary history and his works have had a profound impact on the world. His most famous works include 'Faust' and 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. more

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“There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable. There is no way you can tell the child that if language had been a melody, he had mastered it and done well, but that since it was in fact a sense, he had botched it utterly.”

IfsWayWellsLooksChildrenLongDoneFactsAgeCertainLanguageSpeechMelodyEnglish LanguageSyllablesEarnestnessSpoken English
Book:PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK
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“I have never known what is Arabic or English, or which one was really mine beyond any doubt. What I do know, however, is that the two have always been together in my life, one resonating in the other, sometimes ironically, sometimes nostalgically, most often each correcting, and commenting on, the other. Each can seem like my absolutely first language, but neither is.”

KnowsFirstsTwoSometimesSeemsTogetherLanguageKnownDoubtMinesCorrectingResonating
Book:Out Of Place: A Memoir
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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.”

IfsKnowsWayChildrenPersonsStillsDifferentLanguageGoalPerfectExampleEnglish LanguageForeignersAcquiring Knowledge
Book:Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use
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“Hell is out of fashion - institutional hells at any rate. The populated infernos of the 20th century are more private affairs, the gaps between the bars are the sutures of one's own skull. A valid hell is one from which there is a possibility of redemption, even if this is never achieved, the dungeons of an architecture of grace whose spires point to some kind of heaven. The institutional hells of the present century are reached with one-way tickets, marked Nagasaki and Buchenwald, worlds of terminal horror even more final than the grave.”

IfsWorldWayKindHeavenHellGraceCenturyFashionPossibilityHorrorFinalsRateAffairArchitectureGravesBarsRedemptionOne WayGapsTickets20th CenturySkullsDungeonsInfernoTerminalSpiresBuchenwald
Author:J. G. Ballard
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“And what have you laymen made of hell? A kind of penal servitude for eternity, on the lines of your convict prisons on earth, to which you condemn in advance all the wretched felons your police have hunted from the beginning - enemies of society, as you call them. You're kind enough to include the blasphemers and the profane. What proud or reasonable man could stomach such a notion of God's justice? And when you find that notion inconvenient it's easy enough for you to put it on one side. Hell is not to love any more, Madame. Not to love any more!”

MenKindMadeEnoughEarthEasySidesLinesJusticeEnemyHellProudEternityPolicePrisonNotionReasonableStomachWretchedServitudeInconvenientProfaneHuntedConvictsLaymanFelonsReasonable Man
Book:The Diary of a Country Priest
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