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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“When philosophers use a word--"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"--and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?--What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.”

WayTryingUseHomeUsedAsksGamesNamesLanguageObjectsEssenceOriginalsEverydayOneselfPhilosopherMetaphysicsPropositionsMetaphysicalEveryday Use
Book:Philosophical Investigations
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“My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the whole world aright.”

WorldWayWholeUsedSpeakLanguageStepsPhilosophicalFollowingWhole WorldClimbsPropositionsLaddersUnderstand MeNonsensical
Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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“Both poet and painter want to reach the silence behind the language, the silence within the language. Both painter and poet want their work to shine not only in daylight but (by whatever illusionist magic) from within.”

WantScienceReligionLanguageBehindsSilenceMagicPoetShiningPainterSilence IsDaylightIllusionists
Book:Figures of thought: speculations on the meaning of poetry & other essays
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“When it happeneth that a man signifieth unto us two contradictory opinions whereof the one is clearly and directly signified, andthe other either drawn from that by consequence, or not known to be contradictory to it; then (when he is not present to explicate himself better) we are to take the former of his opinions; for that is clearly signified to be his, and directly, whereas the other might proceed from error in the deduction, or ignorance of the repugnancy.”

MenTwoMightLanguageKnownOpinionIgnoranceConsequenceErrorsFormerInterpretationContradictoryDeductionsHermeneutics
Book:The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: Part I, Human Nature, Part II, De Corpore Politico ; with Three Lives
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“Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.”

WorldMeanGodSpiritualMovingUniverseThreeLanguageNationsEasySoundLinesLibertyMillionsIntellectualLettersArmyCommandRealmsRemarkableConcentrationManipulationEvidentAbstractionOne WordDynamics
Author:Novalis
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“There has been in our time a lack of reliance on language and a lack of experimentation which are frightening to anyone who sees them as symptoms. We know the phenomenon of stage-fright: it holds the player shivering, incapable of speech or action. Perhaps there is an audience-fright which the play can feel, which leaves him with these incapacities.”

KnowsFeelsHas BeensPlayActionLanguageAudiencePlayerStageSpeechOur TimePhenomenonFrighteningIncapableSymptomsRelianceExperimentationFrightIncapacityStage Fright
Author:Muriel Rukeyser
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“I have issued the command, and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad, that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death's-head formation in readiness, for the present only in the East, with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

MenNeedsChildrenDoeWarTodayRememberCertainTimeOrderSpeakLanguageLinesSpaceCompassionEnemyGainsCriticismDestructionMercyAimEastCommandReachingGenocideOne WordPolishMen WomenFormationReadinessAnnihilationFiringSquadArmeniansArmenian Genocide
Author:Adolf Hitler
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“It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak.”

LifeWritingFirstsHumansMomentsAgePoetryHumanitySpeakLanguageSubjectsPoetSourceProtectElementsTragedyAncientIllnessOld AgeHuman LifeTragic
Author:Louise Bogan
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“Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not with the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience.”

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Author:Northrop Frye
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“But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all theabstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called "Sympathetic Nature.”

KnowsWritingMindArtUseFormLanguageTermNumbersKnow HowSensesCivilizedVulgarAbstractionMistressSympatheticRefinedDetachedCorrespondingArt Of Writing
Author:Giambattista Vico
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“Without Christ, sciences in every department are vain....The man who knows not God is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we may affirm this too with truth, that these choice gifts of God -- expertness of mind, acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.”

KnowsMenShouldMindMayArtWisdomTruthAgeReligionChoicesFallLanguageChristKnowledgeLearningHonestyHe ManJudgmentInstanceVainBranchesWickedDepartmentAcquaintanceGift From GodWicked Man
Author:John Calvin
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“One of the things that was really influential early on was Ezra Pound's Cantos, one poem he worked on for 50 years. It's epic. I had a great deal of difficulty understanding it. One of the problems was you'd be reading along in English and he would move to a Chinese ideogram or French-he actually used seven different languages in a given poem. And for somebody who's not fluent in different languages it has the impact of rupturing your way of understanding something.”

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Author:Richard Misrach
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“Why is it that Serge Lange's Linear Algebra, published by no less a Verlag than Springer, ostentatiously displays the sale of a few thousand copies over a period of fifteen years, while the same title by Seymour Lipschutz in the The Schaum's Outlines will be considered a failure unless it brings in a steady annual income from the sale of a few hundred thousand copies in twenty-six languages?”

YearsScienceLanguagePeriodsThousandSixHundredTwentiesMathematicsIncomeTitlesCopiesSteadyDisplayFifteenOutlinesLinearAnnualsAlgebraFifteen Years
Author:Gian-Carlo Rota
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“There are many deaf people who couldn't imagine living in a marriage without someone who doesn't speak their language. For me, I believe that hearing or deaf is fine as long as both parties are willing to communicate in each other's language. But if there's no communication, then the marriage, I believe, will be difficult if not doomed.”

PeopleIfsBelieveLongSpeakLanguageI BelieveDifficultPartyImagineWillingCommunicationFineCommunicateHearingDoomedDeafDeafnessNo Communication
Author:Marlee Matlin
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“It is clear that everybody interested in science must be interested in world 3 objects. A physical scientist, to start with, may be interested mainly in world 1 objects--say crystals and X-rays. But very soon he must realize how much depends on our interpretation of the facts, that is, on our theories, and so on world 3 objects. Similarly, a historian of science, or a philosopher interested in science must be largely a student of world 3 objects.”

WorldMayFactsLanguageRealizingClearObjectsStudentsTheoryDependsScientistPhilosopherInterpretationHistorianRaysCrystalsSubjectivity
Book:Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography
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“The very natural tendency to use terms derived from traditional grammar like verb, noun, adjective, passive voice, in describing languages outside of Indo-European is fraught with grave possibilities of misunderstanding.”

UseLanguageVoiceTermNaturalPossibilityGravesTraditionalTendenciesPassiveMisunderstandingGrammarDescribingVerbsAdjectivesNounsPassive Voice
Book:Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf
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“I am intrigued with the shapes people choose as their symbols to create a language. There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines that becomes a symbol. This is common to all languages, all people, all times.”

PeopleFormLanguageLinesCommonObjectsShapesStructureAll TimeSymbolsMinimumIndicationIntrigued
Book:Keith Haring Journals: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
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“I want to see all the countries in the world and learn all the languages. I want to have thousands of friends and I want all my friends to be different. I want to play six instruments. I want to be the best in the world at two things. I want to be a great athlete and I want to be a great surgeon. I need to practice very hard every day. I need to sleep as little as possible. I need to read at least one major book every week. And I need to remember that my seventy years are going to go by too quickly.”

WorldWantNeedsYearsLittlesTwoBookDifferentCountryHardPlayRememberLanguageSleepPracticeWeekYouthSixAmbitionMajorsMy FriendsInstrumentsAthleteTwo ThingsBeing The BestSeventiesSurgeonsGreat Athlete
Author:Diana Nyad
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“History is driven, over the long haul, by culture - by what men and women honor, cherish, and worship; by what societies deem to be true and good, and by the expressions they give to those convictions in language, literature, and the arts; by what individuals and societies are willing to stake their lives on.”

MenGivingLongArtCultureLiteratureIndividualLanguageWillingExpressionHonorWorshipMen And WomenConvictionDrivenBeing TrueCherishStakesHaulLong HaulIndividuals And Society
Book:The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God
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“[H]ow do I pity those who (assuming the name of friends) surround themselves with maxims importing the wisdom of doubt and suspicion, 'til they impose on themselves that very hard task of laboring through life without ever knowing a human creature to whom they can make the proper use of language and freely speak the dictates of their hearts!”

HumansHeartHardUseValuesNamesSpeakLanguageFriendshipKnowingDoubtFriendsCreaturesTasksAssumingPitySurroundSuspicionMaximsUse Of Language
Author:Sarah Fielding
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“There is yet another kind of matrimonial dialect (which naturally succeeds this of talking at each other), which may very properlybe styled The Language Contradictory.... In the former, however plain the object of satire may be exhibited to the whole company, yet there always remains some little covering.... But in this last method, the defiance becomes more open and the impetuosity with which these contradictions are uttered (although the subjects of them are often of the most indifferent nature) evidently prove that they arise from passion.”

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Author:Sarah Fielding
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“An amoeba is a formless thing which takes many shapes. It moves by thrusting out an arm, and flowing into the arm. It multiplies by pulling itself in two, without permanently diminishing the original. So with words. A meaning may develop on the periphery of the body of meanings associated with a word, and shortly this tentacle-meaning has grown to such proportions that it dwarfs all other meanings.”

MayTwoBodyMovingLanguageArmsShapesOriginalsProportionPullingDwarfsPeripheryTentaclesAmoeba
Author:Charlton Laird
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“Sexuality is primarily a means of communicating with other people, a way of talking to them, of expressing our feelings about ourselves and them. It is essentially a language, a body language, in which one can express gentleness and affection, anger and resentment, superiority and dependence far more succinctly than would be possible verbally, where expressions are unavoidably abstract and often clumsy.”

PeopleWayMeanFeelingsBodyWould BeLanguageSexTalkingExpressionAffectionCommunicateSexualityAbstractResentmentSuperiorityDependenceGentlenessClumsyBody LanguageAnger And ResentmentWay Of TalkingCommunicating With Others
Book:From Hegel to Existentialism
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