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Human Language Quotes

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Human Language Quotes

“Graffiti is the art of the people. It is a language without clear official status, but whose instinctive quality testifies to the honesty of human experience and the true nobility of art. Often marked with a sense of eroticism and violence, the wall conserves something pure and sacred about the human story.”

ArtSufferingHumanityViolenceHuman NatureHonestySelf ExpressionGraffitiHuman LanguageEroticism
Book:In Search for Meaning
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“We do not realize how deeply our starting assumptions affect the way we go about looking for and interpreting the data we collect. We should recognize that nonhuman organisms need not meet every new definition of human language, tool use, mind, or consciousness in order to have versions of their own that are worthy of serious study. We have set ourselves too much apart, grasping for definitions that will distinguish man from all other life on the planet. We must rejoin the great stream of life from whence we arose and strive to see within it the seeds of all we are and all we may become.”

MenWayNeedsShouldMindHumansMayUseOrderLanguageRealizingConsciousnessStudyToo MuchPlanetsSeriousToolsStriveStartingDefinitionsWorthySeedsVersionsDataStreamsAssumptionOrganismsGraspingInterpretingHuman Language
Book:Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind
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“Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefore objective in the sense that it can be unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.”

HumansIndividualLanguageGivenStudyDevelopmentOrdinaryTasksAccountsIndependentMethodPhysicsObjectivesJudgementHuman ExperienceSubjectiveHuman Language
Book:Collected Works
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“Mathematics never reveals man to the degree, never expresses him in the way, that any other field of human endeavour does: the extent of the negation of man's corporeal self that mathematics achieves cannot be compared with anything. Whoever is interested in this subject I refer to my articles. Here I will say only that the world injected its patterns into human language at the very inception of that language; mathematics sleeps in every utterance, and can only be discovered, never invented.”

MenWorldWayHumansDoeSelfLanguageSleepAchieveSubjectsFieldsDegreesMathematicsPatternsArticlesEndeavourUtteranceNegationInceptionHuman Language
Book:His Master's Voice
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“Evolution explains our biological evolution, but human beings are very unique creatures. As the Dobzhansky said, all animals are unique; humans are the uniquest. And that uniqueness of being human, language, art, culture, our dependency on culture for survival, comes from the combination of traditional biological evolution.”

HumansArtSaidCultureLanguageHuman BeingsAnimalEvolutionCreaturesSurvivalUniqueTraditionalCombinationUniquenessBeing HumanDependencyHuman LanguageBiological EvolutionLanguage Arts
Author:Donald Johanson
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“All my desires are born of my dreams. And I have proven my love with words. To what fantastic creatures have I entrusted myself, in what dolorous and ravishing world has my imagination enclosed me? I am sure of having been loved in the most mysterious of domains, my own. The language of my love does not belong to human language, my human body does not touch the flesh of my love. My amorous imagination has always been constant and high enough so that nothing could attempt to convince me of error.”

WorldHumansDoeEnoughDreamBodyDesireLanguageBornImaginationMy OwnCreaturesConstantErrorsFleshMysteriousFantasticConvinceProvenDomainMy ImaginationHuman BodyHuman LanguageAmorous
Author:Paul Eluard
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“When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.”

PeopleIfsWayFeelsHumansWantedMovingUsedSongFoundLanguageSoundLinesTalkingHarmonyJazzPhrasesMelodySoloVocalBassBack And ForthViolinistHuman LanguageVowelsConsonantsMelody And Harmony
Author:Bobby McFerrin
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“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”

SoulInspirationRunningLanguageGrowsLearningBloodCommunicationTongueEnglish LanguageLearnersForeign LanguageLanguage LearningMother TongueHuman LanguageInspirational LearningLearning LanguageLanguage WordsLanguage And CommunicationLanguages CommunicationCulture And LanguageLanguage CultureLearning EnglishInternational LanguageEnglish WordsLanguage Arts
Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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“Therefore, the two processes, that of science and that of art, are not very different. Both science and art form in the course of the centuries a human language by which we can speak about the more remote parts of reality, and the coherent sets of concepts as well as the different styles of art are different words or groups of words in this language.”

HumansWellsArtTwoDifferentRealityFormCoursesSpeakLanguageProcessGroupsCenturyStyleConceptsArt And ScienceDifferent StylesHuman Language
Author:Werner Heisenberg
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“Where psychedelics comes together with that is that it's going to require a transformation of human language and understanding to stop the momentum of the historical process, to halt nuclear proliferation, germ warfare, infantile 19th century politics, all these things. It cannot be accomplished through a frontal assault upon it by political means.”

HumansMeanTogetherPoliticalLanguageProcessUnderstandingCenturyTransformationHistoricalNuclearAccomplishedWarfareAssaultMomentum19th CenturyHaltGermsProliferationInfantileHuman LanguageNuclear Proliferation
Author:Terence McKenna
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“How torturous is the "churchly" language one must speak in church - the tone, style, habit. It is all artificial; there is a total absence of a simple human language. With what a sigh of relief one leaves this world of cassocks, and kissing and church gossip. As soon as one leaves, one sees: wet bare branches, fog which floats over fields, trees, homes. Sky. Early dusk. And it all tells an incredibly simple truth.”

WorldHumansHomeSpeakLanguageChurchSimpleTreeSkyStyleFieldsThis WorldHabitKissingAbsenceToneBranchesReliefGossipArtificialWetSighFogFloatsDuskSimple TruthsHuman LanguageSigh Of ReliefBare Branches
Author:Alexander Schmemann
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“No one seriously doubts that if Piraha children are brought up in Boston they'll be speaking Boston English, that is, that the capacities are present, unlike other animals, as far as is known. There's no challenge to the theory - not mine, but everyone's - that the human language faculty provides the means for generation of an infinite array of structured expressions.”

IfsHumansMeanChildrenLanguageChallengesAnimalKnownDoubtGenerationsMinesExpressionTheoryCapacityInfiniteFacultyBostonHuman Language
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“I think the most important work that is going on has to do with the search for very general and abstract features of what is sometimes called universal grammar: general properties of language that reflect a kind of biological necessity rather than logical necessity; that is, properties of language that are not logically necessary for such a system but which are essential invariant properties of human language and are known without learning. We know these properties but we don't learn them. We simply use our knowledge of these properties as the basis for learning.”

ThinkingKnowsHumansKindImportantSometimesUseLanguageKnownEssentialsUniversalBasesPropertyFeaturesAbstractLogicalGrammarHuman LanguageImportant Work
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Imagine an extrahuman observer looking at us. Such an extrahuman observer would be struck precisely by the uniformity of human languages, by the very slight variation from one language to another, and by the remarkable respects in which all languages are the same. And then he would notice we do not pay any attention to that because for the purpose of human life it is quite natural and appropriate just to take for granted everything that is common. We don't concern ourselves with that, all we worry about are differences.”

HumansWould BePurposeLanguageNaturalDifferencesCommonPayAttentionWorryImagineConcernGrantedHuman LifeAppropriateRemarkableObserversVariationUniformityHuman Language
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The very properties of the human mind that provide an enormous scope for human genius in some domains will serve as barriers to progress in other domains, just as the properties that enable each child to acquire a complex and highly articulated human language block the acquisition of other imaginable linguistic systems.”

MindHumansChildrenLanguageProgressGeniusPropertyComplexesEnormousBlockAcquireBarriersHuman MindDomainScopeAcquisitionHuman Language
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“In your relationship with God there are also times when you want to say things and you're trying to find the words to express them. In a human relationship sometimes you struggle for words and you've got to do it, but in a relationship with God he can actually give you a language which enables you to communicate. In a relationship with God you feel things and you want to express them and you're not limited by human language. You can express what you really feel in your heart, through a language that he gives you, and that helps you to communicate with God.”

WantGivingFeelsTryingHumansHeartSometimesHelpingLanguageStruggleCommunicateOur RelationshipHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsRelationship With GodHuman Language
Author:Nicky Gumbel
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“The God of the Hebrews is a God that human language, we're not even supposed to speak the holy name. We were told in the Second Commandment we could make no images of this God, and I don't think that means just building idols, I think that means also trying to believe you've captured God in your words, in the Creeds, in the Scriptures.”

ThinkingTryingBelieveHumansMeanNamesSpeakLanguageBuildingHolyScriptureIdolsCreedsCommandmentsCapturedHebrewHuman Language
Author:John Shelby Spong
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“Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.”

WayInspirationalHumansMeanRealSpiritLanguageHalfRightsViolenceConflictSolutionsPercentHundredPracticalsDialogueCompromiseWinnerLoserReconciliationDisagreementNon ViolenceHuman Language
Author:Dalai Lama
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“Imagine a poem written with such enormous three-dimensional words that we had to invent a smaller word to reference each of the big ones; that we had to rewrite the whole thing in shorthand, smashing it into two dimensions, just to talk about it. Or don’t imagine it. Look outside. Human language is our attempt at navigating God’s language; it is us running between the lines of His epic, climbing on the vowels and building houses out of the consonants.”

HumansLooksTwoWholeBigsRunningThreeHouseLanguageLinesImagineWrittenBuildingEnormousDimensionsClimbingEpicSmashingShorthandBetween The LinesHuman LanguageVowelsConsonantsBuilding Houses
Author:N.D. Wilson
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“One of the most frustrating words in the human language, as far as I could tell, was love. So much meaning attached to this one little word. People bandied it about freely, using it to describe their attachments to possessions, pets, vacation destinations, and favorite foods. In the same breath they then applied this word to the person they considered most important in their lives. Wasn’t that insulting? Shouldn’t there be some other term to describe deeper emotion?”

PeopleHumansLittlesPersonsImportantLanguageTermEmotionBreathsPossessionDeeperPetAttachmentDestinationVacationFrustratingInsultingHuman LanguageFavorite Foods
Book:Halo
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“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”

WorldWayInspirationalLooksMotivationalLanguageFourCommunicationContactBody LanguageHuman LanguageNonverbalLanguage And CommunicationLanguages CommunicationVerbal Communication
Book:The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking
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“We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.”

HumansMayDifferentCultureLanguageRaceAcceptanceDiversitySkinsUnityHuman RaceBrotherhoodUnity In DiversityDifferent CulturesSkin ColorDifferent LanguagesDifferent ColorsHuman LanguageDifferent ReligionsInspirational DiversityGreat DiversityCulture And LanguageLanguage CultureHuman DiversityTolerance And DiversityCultures Of The World
Author:Kofi Annan
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“The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.”

WantHumansTogetherReligionLanguageMistakeSubjectsPossibilitySpeechEvidenceUniversalErrorsAtheistPrintProgressiveWord Of GodVehicleTranslationsAlterationsUniversal LanguagePrinterHuman LanguageMeanings Of WordsProgressive Change
Book:THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…
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“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”

UseLawUsedLanguageProcessPrinciplesGenerationsCreationFixedInterpretationHuman LanguageUse Of LanguageLanguage WordsLanguage And CommunicationLanguages Communication
Book:For Reasons Of State
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