Best language & expression Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: General Linguistics

“I am committed to writing appropriate books for the middle grades. This means no bad language, no gratuitous or explicit violence, and no sexual content beyond what you might find in a PG-rated movie – expressions of who likes whom, holding hands, and perhaps the occasional kiss. The idea that we should treat sexual orientation itself as an adults-only topic, however, is absurd. Non-heterosexual children exist. To pretend they do not, to fail to recognize that they have needs for support and validation like any child, would be bad teaching, bad writing, and bad citizenship.”

“Letters to the editors of English and American newspapers often contain expressions of horror about the new terms that creep into the language, and these expressions are usually accompanied by dire predictions about ruination of the mother tongue.”

Mother Language Term Expression Horror Letters Tongue Newspapers Editors Predictions Creeps Mother Tongue

Book:Word Play: What Happens When People Talk

Source: Word Play: What Happens When People Talk

“Physical expression was my first language: Before I was an actor, I was a dancer, an acrobat, a mime and a street performer.”

Firsts Actors Language Streets Expression Dancer Performers Mime Street Performers

Author:Denis Lavant

“I am of the international upper class, the Swedish petit bourgeoisie of Jewish extraction with poor language skills, a conveyor of a few expressions and faces, with some intonation that combines ancient human experience with timely coquetry.”

Humans Faces Language Poor Class Expression Skills International Ancient Human Experience Bourgeoisie Timely Upper Class Swedish Coquetry Extraction Intonation Language Skills

Author:Erland Josephson

“Our entire being is fashioned as an instrument of praise. Just as a master violin maker designs an instrument to produce maximum aesthetic results, so God tailor-made our bodies, souls and spirits to work together in consonance to produce pleasing expressions of praise and worship. When we use body language to express praise, that which is internal becomes visible.”

“Artists are perennially implored to consider 'the limitations of the medium.' Whoever invented this expression exaggerated the limitations of the English language. We are not concerned with what effects cannot be produced with our materials.”

Artist Language Effects Expression Materials Concerned Mediums Limitation English Language Exaggerated

Author:Walter J. Phillips

“The places I come from have such rich languages, such a variety of expression. In Sierra Leone we have about fifteen languages and three dialects. I grew up speaking about seven of them.”

Three Language Rich Expression Grew Grew Up Seven Variety Fifteen Dialect Sierra Sierra Leone

Book:Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel

Source: Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel

“The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.”

Men Character Language He Man Expression Refined Coarse

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis; but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.”

Should Littles Language Voice Style Expression Great Things Tone Little Things Emphasis Spoiled Lofty Delivery

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ...But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.”

“In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner.”

People Reason Energy Language Force Natural Expression Ordinary Passionate Critical Admire Affected Observers Force And Energy

Book:A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Source: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

“When we say 'time', I believe we mean at least two things. We mean changes. And we mean something unchangeable. We mean something that moves . but against an unmoving background. And vice versa.Animals can sense changes. But consciousness of time involves the double sense of constancy and change. Which can only be attributed to those who give expression to it. And that can only be done through language, and only man has language.The perception of time and language are inextricably bound up with one another.”

Men Giving Believe Mean Two Done Moving Language I Believe Animal Consciousness Expression Perception Bounds Vices Backgrounds Two Things Vice Versa Constancy Unchangeable

Book:Borderliners: A Novel

Source: Borderliners: A Novel

“Language always preserves a play or figure/ground relation between experience, and perception and its replay in expression.”

Play Language Figures Expression Perception Relation Preserves Replay

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“Catalan language is one of the most complete and perfect expressions that I know from the point of view regarding language, I not only read it since many years ago, but I understand it. Moreover, I speak it intimately too.”

Knows Years Speak Language Perfect Views Expression Years Ago Point Of View

Author:Jose Maria Aznar

“The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.”

Thinking Should Book Able Lying Order Language Sides Expression Limits Should Have Aim Nonsense Both Sides Thinkable

Book:Wittgenstein's Tractatus

Source: Wittgenstein's Tractatus

“What joins the Americans one to another is not a common ancestry, language or race, but a shared work of the imagination that looks forward to the making of a future, not backward to the insignia of the past. Their enterprise is underwritten by a Constitution that allows for the widest horizons of sight and the broadest range of expression, supports the liberties of the people as opposed to the ambitions of the state, and stands as premise for a narrative rather than plan for an invasion or a monument. The narrative was always plural; not one story, many stories.”

“Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.”

Thinking Language Cases Imagine Expression Suits Permit Vague

Book:Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life

Source: Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life

“In every art we are always obliged to return to the accepted means of expression, the conventional language of the art. What is a black-and-white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature?”

Mind Mean Art Eye Language Black White Expression Return Drawing Accepted Conventions Black And White Conventional Accustomed Translations Obliged Beholder

Author:Eugene Delacroix

“Thought without language, says Lavelle, would not be a purer thought; it would be no more than the intention to think. And his last book offers a theory of expressiveness which makes of expression not "a faithful image of an already realized interior being, but the very means by which it is realized.”

Thinking Mean Book Would Be Lasts Language Expression Theory Offers Intention Faithful Interiors Very Mean

Book:In Praise of Philosophy

Source: In Praise of Philosophy

“Were a language ever completely "grammatical" it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.”

Would Be Language Perfect Expression Consistent Engines Grammar Leaks

Author:Edward Sapir

“Language is inherently not concerned with logic. As an expression of the psychological activities of humankind, it simply follows a linear process as it seeks actualisation. Moreover, it does not obey the objective concepts of time and space that belong to the physical world. When the discussion of time and space is imported into linguistic art from scientific aims and research methods, that linguistic art is entirely reduced to trifling pseudo-philosophical issues.”

“Visual journaling allows us to access our inner language of imagery and express it both verbally and visually, while exploring the connection between image and word.”

Language Expression Connections Access Visuals Exploring Imagery Journaling

Author:Michael Bell

“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The 'thing in itself' (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for.”

Shows Would Be Language Sides Expression Pure Consequence Strive Various Creator Adequate

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche

“The highest thoughts are those which are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it is entitled are in exact proportion to its dependency of language or expression.”

Language Expression Highest Dignity Praise Proportion Dependent Composition Entitled Dependency

Author:John Ruskin

“Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone can rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.”

Way May Song Language Sound Emotion Expression Eternal Musical Treasure Appeals Operations Subtle Popularity Definite Justified Rifles Musical Expression

Book:Music and morals

Source: Music and morals

“The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium.”

Seems Language Mankind Expression Flower Taste Universal Mediums Symbols Serving Sentiments Delicate Finest Gross Fitting

Author:George Stillman Hillard

“Poetic language features an iconic rather than a predominantly conventional relationship of form and content in which all language (and cultural) elements, variant as well as invariant, may be involved in the expression of the content.", "Analysis of the Poetic Text.”

Wells May Art Form Poetry Language Expression Involved Elements Features Analysis Poetic Conventional Iconic

Author:Yuri Lotman

“Let it be signified to me through any channelthat the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, andin sixty days it will be accomplished. ...penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favors and not rights.”

States Would Be Language United United States Rights Expression Revolution Asking Possession Favors Accomplished Sixty Florida Desirable Majesty Servility

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.”

Men May Mean Seems Beautiful Language Given Expression Habit Diversity Logic Constitution Foolish Heat Native Construction Patriot Convenient Native Language

Author:George Santayana

“The finest works of art are those in which there is the least matter. The closer expression comes to thought, the more the word clings to the idea and disappears, the more beautiful the work of art.”

Thinking Art Ideas Matter Beautiful Artist Language Expression Disappear Thoughtful Works Of Art Finest

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“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.”

Source: The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God

“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.”

Source: From Hegel to Existentialism

“We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings. But how great a language to convey such pepper-corn informations!”

Language Natural Objects Particular Expression Corn Peppers

Book:The Portable Emerson: New Edition

Source: The Portable Emerson: New Edition

“The hypothesis I wish to advance is thatthe language of morality is ingrave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have--very largely if not entirely--lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”

Ifs Use Lost Language Wish Expression Keys Morality Practicals Significance Disorder Schemes Hypothesis Fragments Theoretical Comprehension

Author:Alasdair MacIntyre

“Vulgarism in language is the distinguishing characteristic of bad company, and a bad education. A man of fashion avoids nothing with more care than that. Proverbial expressions, and trite sayings, are the flowers of the rhetoric of vulgar man.”

Men Care Language Company Fashion Expression Flower Characteristics Rhetoric Vulgar Vulgarity Proverbial Bad Company Bad Education

Book:Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters

“It takes time and devotion to learn the language of color and lighting in the garden. Your tastes are sure to change over time, reflecting your inner evolution. Seeing the garden as a canvas for your celebration of Nature's palette is a wonderful expression of the soul's love of beauty and artistry. Your own inner intuition, however, is often your best teacher, but don't forget that Mother Nature will always have a few surprises up Her sleeve as well.”

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Language Quotes