Quotessence
Home / Topics / Language Quotes

Language Quotes

Browse 9447 quotes about Language.

Related topics

IfsPeopleSpeakThinkingWorldWayUseWritingKnowsMenEnglish LanguageHumansBookDifferentMeanFirstsCommunicationTryingWantArtShouldCultureNeedsKindMayFeelsFormIdeasMindWellsDoeTwoCountryChildrenLiteratureBodyHas BeensYearsImportantGivingFeelingsHeartSaidUsedCommonStoriesFactsLittlesWrittenSpeechMadeStillsUniversalForeign LanguageLongLooksMusic IsSoulPersonsBelieveSometimesSoundI CanMatterRealityPoetTongueCommunicateRealReasonSeemsWholeUnderstandingWould BeAbleTermNamesTranslationsSilenceProblemProgrammingEnoughSentencesStatesExpressionEndsTogetherAgeOrderPlayCharacterDifficultCertainMathematicsPoliticalCoursesHelpingNaturalReadingBody Languagemore

Language Quotes

“Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.”

IfsMenBookHandsRunningPainFacesNightLanguageWhitePathSawsCryWindHorrorRaisedWoundsVulnerableMortalsRanHuntingFar AwayLooking BackMoonlightHolmesHounds
Book:Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection With illustrated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 4 Novels, 56 Short Stories and 120+ illustrations
Create image

“It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.”

WorldYearsBelieveChildrenBookCountryJoyLanguageStarsGoneCitizensOur ChildrenUnionsWideMinistersFollyFlagsMonarchsStripes
Book:Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Create image

“Today the crime novelist has one advantage denied to writers of 'straight' or 'literary' novels. Unlike them he can range over all levels of society, for crime can easily breach the barriers that exist in our stratified society. Because of these barriers the modern literary novel, unlike its 19th-century predecessors, is often confined to the horizontal, dealing only with one class. But crime runs through society from top to bottom, and so the crime novelist can present a fuller picture of the way we live now.”

WayBookRunningTodayLanguageLevelsClassNovelModernCenturyCrimeAdvantageBottomRangeNovelistsBarriersDeniedConfined19th CenturyPredecessorsBreachHorizontal
Book:Life & Letters: The Spectator Columns
Create image

“I confess that I have not cleared a path through all seven hundred pages, I confess to having examined only bits and pieces, and yet I know what it is, with that bold and legitimate certainty with which we assert our knowledge of a city, without ever having been rewarded with the intimacy of all the many streets it includes.”

KnowsBookLanguageBitsCitiesPathPiecesStreetsPagesHundredSevenCertaintyIntimacyBits And Pieces
Book:Selected Non-fictions
Create image

“Kitty Kelley's method, already perfected in her unauthorised and unflattering biographies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, is to write bestsellers that take what she describes as an 'unblinking look' at their subjects - which might, of course, mean that her eyes are permanently open or permanently closed... the result is a work so bad that Britons cannot realise how fortunate they are in being unable to buy it. The great mistake with this book is not that it has been published in Britain, but that it has actually been published anywhere else.”

WritingLooksMeanHas BeensBookMightEyeCoursesLanguageResultsMistakeSubjectsMethodFortunateBritainRealisingFrankHer EyesBiographiesNancyGreat MistakesKittiesBritons
Author:David Cannadine
Create image

“When I heard the book (Thomas Friedman's latest) was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays.”

WritingHumansTwoBookWould BeLanguageWorryHeardGeniusCriticismInnocentMake SenseFeaturesLengthReviewsPassagesInvitesUsualComing OutEssaysIncompetenceRatiosSingle Word
Author:Matt Taibbi
Create image

“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.”

ThinkingWayFirstsWellsMayLongBookStoriesReadingLiteratureNamesLanguageHoursNumbersCompanyNovelWrittenWorstEventsComplexesInternationalDetailsLondonNarrativeCodeProseDescriptionDefiniteLong WaySan FranciscoDescribingCurriculumStylistJournalisticRenownedDa Vinci Code
Author:Geoffrey K. Pullum
Create image

“Amis is acutely, vibrantly sensitive to the different registers of laughter. He knows that it can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound, and also the most sinister and animalistic one. He understands every note of every octave that separates the liberating shout of mirth from the cackle of a bully or the snigger of a sadist.”

KnowsHumansBookDifferentLanguageSoundLaughterNotesSensitiveBullyLiberatingRegisterSinisterMirthAffirmingAnimalistic
Author:Martin Amis
Create image

“Some people have a knack, for example, of being able to tell when someone's lying to them. They may not know what the truth is, but they can tell when someone is trying to lead them astray or sell them something shady. I think he had that ability to an amazing degree. I also think he thought, without saying it explicitly, that you can convince a crowd of something that's not true more easily than you can one person at a time.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsTryingMayPersonsBookAbleLyingLanguageAbilityExampleTruth IsDegreesSellsCrowdsConvinceKnackShady
Author:George Orwell
Create image

“Steve Coogan picks up enough to lecture an interviewer: This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about. Later it's claimed that Tristram Shandy was No. 8 on the Observer's list of the greatest novels, which cheers everyone until they discover the list was chronological.”

BookEnoughLanguageNovelPicksListsPostsCheerObserversLecturesModernismPostmodernInterviewers
Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007
Create image

“Once, BBC television had echoed BBC radio in being a haven for standard English pronunciation. Then regional accents came in: a democratic plus. Then slipshod usage came in: an egalitarian minus. By now slovenly grammar is even more rife on the BBC channels than on ITV. In this regard a decline can be clearly charted... If the BBC, once the guardian of the English language, has now become its most implacable enemy, let us at least be grateful when the massacre is carried out with style.”

IfsLanguageEnemyStyleHavensTelevisionStandardsRegardGratefulDemocraticRadioPlusDeclineAccentsBe GratefulGrammarGuardianEnglish LanguageUsageMassacresMinusPronunciationStandard English
Author:Clive James
Create image

“Kids don't know the language of figure skating. If you ask them to do a compulsory figure, they don't know how to, and that's so important for the edge quality. I think that's why the older skaters are still as popular as they are - because they have that quality that people are missing in this generation.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsStillsImportantKidsAsksLanguageSportsQualityKnow HowGenerationsMissingFiguresEdgesSkatingThis GenerationFigure SkatingCompulsorySkater
Author:Brian Boitano
Create image

“No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually outgrown. None sees a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs: the decay is long and - like the glacier march - is perceptible only to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods.”

PeopleLongDiesLanguageAtheismPeriodsCarefulPositive AtheismComparisonMarchCustomsDecayRejectedObsoleteExtendingWatchersGlaciers
Book:Has Humanity Gained from Unbelief?: Two Nights Debate Between Marsden Gibson and Charles Bradlaugh at Newcastle-on-Tyne
Create image

“Fifteen hundred years is ample time in which to lose mutual comprehension. Iceland was colonized by the Norwegians at the end of the ninth century AD. Today's Icelanders, with considerable effort, can understand people from the Scandinavian peninsula, but the Scandinavians hardly understand the Icelanders. A thousand years is the minimum time span for a language to change so much that it becomes incomprehensible.”

PeopleYearsEndsTodayLanguageLosesEffortCenturyEvolutionThousandHundredMutualAdsFifteenMinimumThousand YearsComprehensionIcelandNorwegiansPeninsulasScandinavians
Author:Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Create image

“Space and force pervade language. Many cognitive scientists (including me) have concluded from their research on language that a handful of concepts about places, paths, motions, agency, and causation underlie the literal or figurative meanings of tens of thousands of words and constructions, not only in English but in every other language that has been studied.”

Has BeensLanguageForceSpacePathEvolutionResearchConceptsScientistIncludingAgencyConstructionHandfulLiteralCognitiveCausation
Book:How the Mind Works
Create image

“The fact that all our ape cousins - chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans - can acquire signs - is powerful evidence that our hominid ancestors' first language was gestural and that the vocal version of language was a relatively recent development. My own guess is that vocal language began emerging about 200,000 years ago.”

YearsFirstsFactsLanguageMy OwnPowerfulAtheismDevelopmentEvidenceYears AgoPositive AtheismVersionsAcquireAncestorCousinVocalEmergingApesChimpanzeesGorillasOrangutansHominids
Author:Roger Fouts
Create image

“Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.”

FirstsFoundHouseLanguageSidesJusticeWhiteAtheismWallBuiltCourtPositive AtheismSupremePhrasesWhite HouseAmendmentsEstatesVagueBentSupreme CourtTwistedFirst AmendmentIncumbentsFuzzySupreme Court JusticeCourt Justice
Book:Neither King Nor Prelate: Religion and the New Nation, 1776-1826
Create image

“Jamie Keehn, our second Australian punter. Again, you have to learn the language. You just can't speak to those guys. You have to know how to speak Australian. ... Australians have a higher voice. When you just speak regular English, it doesn't quite get across. Of course, we've had experience with our Australians, so we're pretty comfortable with adjusting our dialect so that it fits the ability to communicate.”

KnowsGuyCoursesSpeakLanguageVoiceAbilityKnow HowHigherFitComfortableCommunicateTigersAustralianAdjustingJamieDialectLsuAbility To CommunicatePunters
Author:Les Miles
Create image