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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“The new painters do not propose, any more than did their predecessors, to be geometers. But it may be said that geometry is to the plastic arts what grammar is to the art of the writer. Today, scholars no longer limit themselves to the three dimensions of Euclid. The painters have been lead quite naturally, one might say by intuition, to preoccupy themselves with the new possibilities of spatial measurement which, in the language of the modern studios, are designated by the term fourth dimension.”

MayHas BeensArtSaidMightTodayThreeLanguageTermModernPossibilityLimitsLogicStudiosIntuitionPainterCertaintyUncertaintyReasoningDimensionsScholarFourthPlasticGrammarProposeMeasurementGeometryPredecessorsOntologyNew PossibilitiesSpatialEuclidThree Dimensions
Author:Guillaume Apollinaire
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“Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.”

MenFeelsWellsLooksMayLanguageNaturalSimpleGraceConsciousGravesDoctrineGuiltyAwfulDecentAddressesSincereAnxiousGesturesPreacherPreachingImpressSolemnFlocksMessengersAffectionateChaste
Book:The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence
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“Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new animal, but it is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent; since a part of the embryon-animal is, or was, a part of the parent; and therefore in strict language it cannot be said to be entirely new at the time of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of the parent-system. (1794)”

MaySaidLanguageParentAnimalEvolutionHabitProductionsBranchesImperfectionStrictOffspringOwing
Book:Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life ...
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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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“America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.”

PeopleYearsHeartMayPersonsMadeTwoWarAmericaSufferingLanguageViewsCompassionEventsObjectsTearsSorrowDrawsEarsPrejudicePropertyDeterminedRevengeStrikesArguingFollyTwo YearsResentmentEloquenceDoubtfulHardnessExpulsion
Book:THE AMERICAN CRISIS – Revolutionary Work Which Inspired the American People to Fight for Their Independence: Including
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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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“In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language. I have expressed my opinion concerning a number of English writers; it is very possible that I may be mistaken, that my admiration and my censure may be equally misplaced, and that my conclusions may appear impertinent and ridiculous on the other side of the Channel.”

MayPersonsLiteratureLanguageSidesNumbersOpinionWrittenJudgingRidiculousConclusionAdmirationMistakenCompetentCensureMisplaced
Author:François-René de Chateaubriand
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“Make no mistake about it: the labeling of someone's language as 'sexist' involves a political judgment and implies the desirability of a particular sociological doctrine. One may be in favor of that doctrine (as I believe I am) but it is quite another matter to force writers by edicts and censorship into accepting it.”

BelieveMayMatterPoliticalLanguageForceI BelieveMistakeAcceptingParticularSpeechJudgmentFavorsDoctrineCensorshipSexistLabelingSociologicalDesirability
Author:Neil Postman
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“People only speak to get something. If I say, Let me tell you a few things about myself, already your defenses go up; you go, Look, I wonder what he wants from me, because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That's the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, onstage or offstage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but if so, it's just coincidence, because what they're trying to do is accomplish an objective.”

PeopleIfsWantTryingLooksMayReasonUseSeemsSpeakLanguageWonderMouthsLet MeAccomplishDefenseObjectivesCoincidenceRevealing
Author:David Mamet
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“Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that they use constantly in conversation, in the same way we may look to written language as an idealization rather than a reflection of ourselves.”

MenWayLooksMayUseLanguageWrittenStageConversationReflectionRegardProfanityFamily ManWritten Language
Book:States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America
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“The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down; The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown; The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way. Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.”

WayMayLittlesEyeRunningLeftLanguageStrangeCirclesSymbolsShakesSighUp And DownAbsentStalkingGownsRabbiAbsent Minded
Book:The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems
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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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“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
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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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“Not only the individual experience slowly acquired, but the accumulated experience of the race, organized in language, condensed in instruments and axioms, and in what may be called the inherited intuitions--these form the multiple unity which is expressed in the abstract term "experience.”

MayFormIndividualLanguageTermRaceExperienceInstrumentsUnityIntuitionAbstractOrganizedMultipleAxioms
Book:Problems of Life and Mind: v.1-2 . The foundations of a creed
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“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.”

WayMaySongLanguageSoundEmotionExpressionEternalMusicalTreasureAppealsOperationsSubtlePopularityDefiniteJustifiedRiflesMusical Expression
Book:Music and morals
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“My research suggests that men and women may speak different languages that they assume are the same, using similar words to encode disparate experiences of self and social relationships. Because these languages share an overlapping moral vocabulary, they contain a propensity for systematic mistranslation.”

MenMayDifferentSelfSpeakLanguageSocialMoralShareResearchMen And WomenAssumingVocabularySystematicPropensityDifferent LanguagesOverlappingSocial Relationships
Book:In a Different Voice
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“I try to write each piece in the language of the piece, so that I'm not using the same language from piece to piece. I may be using ten or twenty languages. That multiplicity of language and the use of words is African in tradition. And black writers have definitely taken that up and taken it in. It's like speaking in tongues. It may sound like gibberish to somebody, but you know it's a tongue of some kind. Black people have this. We have the ability as a race to speak in tongues, to dream in tongues, to love in tongues.”

PeopleKnowsWritingTryingKindMayUseDreamSpeakLanguageSoundBlackAbilityRaceTakenPiecesTenTraditionTwentiesTongueBlack PeopleMultiplicitySpeaking In Tongues
Author:Alexis De Veaux
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“The primary purpose of the Legislature in establishing "Arbor Day," was to develop and stimulate in the children of the Commonwealth a love and reverence for Nature as revealed in trees and shrubs and flowers. In the language of the statute, "to encourage the planting, protection and preservation of trees and shrubs" was believed to be the most effectual way in which to lead our children to love Nature and reverence Nature's God, and to see the uses to which these natural objects may be put in making our school grounds more healthful and at-tractive.”

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Author:Andrew S. Draper
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