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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“Native speakers of a language know intuitively whether a sentence is grammatical or not. They usually cannot specify exactly what is wrong, and very possibly they make the same mistakes in their own speech, but they know-unconsciously, not as a set of rules they learned in school-when a sentence is incorrect.”

KnowsSchoolLanguageMistakeSpeechSentencesNativeSpeakersGrammarSame Mistakes
Book:Word Play: What Happens When People Talk
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“Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.”

IfsKnowsWorldImportantDreamLanguageHoursDealsWrittenMissingCommunicationBusyMythOutside World
Book:The Forgotten Language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales, and Myths
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“The language I have learnt these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony.”

KnowsYearsUseHandsLanguageHarmonyInstrumentsTongueNativeTunesFortyCunningHarps
Book:Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
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“The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months.”

KnowsChildrenThreeLanguageHoursWorkFourMonthsBecomingSixBenefitsResearchAdultsDifficultyConstantTongueFasterDisagreeDozenSix MonthsTheoreticalExperimentationThree MonthsUnderestimatedFluentLinguists
Author:Tim Ferriss
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“You know we're constantly taking. We don't make most of the food we eat, we don't grow it, anyway. We wear clothes other people make, we speak a language other people developed, we use a mathematics other people evolved and spent their lives building. I mean we're constantly taking things. It's a wonderful ecstatic feeling to create something and put it into the pool of human experience and knowledge.”

PeopleKnowsHumansMeanUseFeelingsScienceSpeakLanguageGrowsWonderKnowledgeWonderfulBuildingClothesMathematicsPoolHuman ExperienceEcstatic
Author:Steve Jobs
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“Cheap music, childish images, the vulgate in language, in its crassest sense, can penetrate to the deeps of our necessities and dreams. It can assert irrevocable tenure there. The opening bars, the hammer-beat accelerando of Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien - the text is infantile, the tune stentorian, and the politics which enlisted the song unattractive - tempt every nerve in me, touch the bone with a cold burn and draw me into God knows what infidelities to reason, each time I hear the song, and hear it, uncalled for, recurrent inside me.”

KnowsReasonDreamSongLanguageColdBeatsDrawsBonesBarsOpeningTunesNervesInfidelityHammersGod KnowsPenetrateUnattractiveTenureIrrevocableInfantileEnlisted
Book:Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?
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“The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on?" That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities.”

KnowsMayLongMomentsLastsLanguagePossibilityWillingEqualDoctorsCurrentsCombinationPhrasesEnglish LanguageDisagreeableNarrow-minded
Book:Love Conquers All
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“Now I see why reading was illegal for black people during slavery. I discover that I think in words. The more words I know, the more things I can think about. My vocab and thoughts grow together like the stem and petals of a flower. Reading was illegal because if you limit someone's vocab, you limit their thoughts. They can't even think of freedom because they don't have the language to.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsI CanTogetherReadingLanguageGrowsBlackFlowerLimitsSlaveryIllegalBlack PeopleStemPetals
Author:M. K. Asante
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“Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance ... Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.”

KnowsActionFormLanguageCausesOpinionDoubtEffectsIgnoranceJudgingConsequenceConclusionPersecutionBetter Than YouToleration
Author:Charles James Fox
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“No one really knew the sciences except the Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, by reason of his length of life and experience, as well as of his studiousness and zeal. He knew mathematics and perspective, and there was nothing which he was unable to know; and at the same time he was sufficiently acquainted with languages to be able to understand the saints and the philosophers and the wise men of antiquity but his knowledge of languages was not such as to enable him to effect translations until the latter portion of his life.”

KnowsMenWellsReasonAbleLanguageLordWiseEffectsPerspectiveMathematicsSaintPhilosopherLatterLengthPortionsTranslationsZealBishopsAntiquityLength Of Life
Author:Roger Bacon
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“This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words , that lies beyond the reach of words. If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.”

IfsKnowsBelieveMeanDoneEnoughRealityActionLyingLanguageEffortChangedFortunateWakingTransformedFinestAwakened
Book:One Minute Wisdom
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“You become a serious programmer by going through a stage where you are fully aware of the degree to which you know the specification, meaning both the explicit and the tacit specification of your language and of your problem. "Hey, it works most of the time" is the very antithesis of a serious programmer, and certain languages can only support code like that.”

KnowsProblemCertainLanguageSupportStageSeriousDegreesHeyCodeWhere You AreProgrammersExplicitAntithesisTacitSpecifications
Author:Erik Naggum
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“Many strange-looking people obviously dress according to deep convictions that are not shared by on-lookers - they clearly do not know how they actually look, but are satisfied with what their clothes make them feel and believe about their looks. These people may be the true originals, even though they are certainly not the best appreciated. The famous messages of dress, the well-known language of clothes, is very often not doing any communicating at all; a good deal of it is a form of private muttering.”

PeopleKnowsFeelsBelieveWellsLooksMayFormLanguageDealsKnownKnow HowStrangeMessagesClothesOriginalsDressesCommunicateConvictionSatisfiedWell KnownAppreciatedMuttering
Book:Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress
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“[What I want to communicate] doesn't have a language with which I can communicate it. The things that I want to communicate are simply self-evident, emotional things. And the gifts of those things are that they bring both intellectual and emotional gifts - understanding. But I don't really have a major message that I want to bring to the world through my music. The music can tell people everything they need to know about being human beings. It's not my information, it's not mine. I didn't make it. I just discovered it.”

PeopleKnowsWorldWantNeedsHumansI CanSelfLanguageUnderstandingHuman BeingsInformationEmotionalMinesMajorsMessagesIntellectualCommunicateBeing HumanEvidentEmotional Things
Author:Jeff Buckley
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“I grew up in the theater, and you can't improvise Shakespeare and Ibsen. You have to speak the language. But obviously, in a contemporary film, there's often room for improvisation and spontaneous things that happen. As long as I know what I'm trying to achieve in the scene, and when something comes up, I know that the response is genuine, I'm comfortable. That's really how I build everything.”

KnowsTryingLongHappensFilmSpeakLanguageRoomsAchieveGrewSceneComfortableGrew UpTheaterResponseCome UpGenuineContemporarySpontaneousImprovisationIbsen
Author:Victor Garber
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“Turn strategy into simple language so every staff member knows it. People must understand why you are doing, what you are doing and where you are going. Big almost impossible, highly meaningful goal + respectful & supportive team is the winning combination of fear & love. Meaning is the biggest sources of energy that gets you up in the morning.”

PeopleKnowsBigsTurnsWinningEnergyLanguageGoalSimpleMorningImpossibleTeamSourceMembersStrategyMeaningfulCombinationWhere You AreStaffSupportiveRespectfulLove MeansFear Of LoveWhere You Are GoingStaff Members
Author:Michael Rennie
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