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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“Reality is very, very contradictory, and so I try to write just perfecting what I see, what I read, what I feel, in a feel-thinking way. Not only giving ideas, or receiving ideas, or trying to explain something, but mainly feel-thinking, a feel-thinking language able to tie the heart and the mind, which have been divorced.”

ThinkingWayGivingFeelsWritingTryingMindHeartHas BeensIdeasRealityAbleLanguageTiesReceivingDivorcedContradictory
Author:Eduardo Galeano
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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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“The history of religions, of which Christianity is a transcendent element, awaits the deepest study. It requires Bibles to free from Bibles. Comparative theology is the best of studies for liberating one's mind from geographical and traditional limitations. Like travelling, it shows the globe in its varying climates and zones, its latitude and longitude of intelligence. When the races shall have learned each other's language, the significance of things to thoughts, one faith becomes universal, one brotherhood.”

MindShowsLanguageRaceChristianityStudyElementsUniversalClimateTheologyTraditionalLimitationZoneSignificanceBrotherhoodGlobesLiberatingTranscendentLatitudeLatitude And Longitude
Author:Amos Bronson Alcott
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“In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs-in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time.”

MindHumansWholeEarthTogetherLawPassionLanguageDifferencesGonePoetClimateSpreadDestroyedAll TimeMannersSoilSpiteEmpiresCustomsHuman Society
Book:The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Together with a Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England, Now First Published with His Works ...
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“After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans ... There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les Anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them.”

PeopleIfsMindLanguageBunchTerritoryRuinedInsultingEloquentIllustrationDescendantsVikingsMind SetScotsCelts
Author:John Ralston Saul
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“A jargon form'd from the lost language, wit, Confounded in that Babel of the pit; Form'd by diseased conceptions, weak and wild, Sick lust of souls, and an abortive child; Born between whores and fops, by lewd compacts, Before the play, or else between the acts; Nor wonder, if from such polluted minds Should spring such short and transitory kinds.”

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Book:The Works of of the Rev. Jonathan Swift
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“Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires.”

ThinkingFeelsMindCountryStatesCharacterAgeLiteratureEnergySpeakLanguageVoiceInspireResourcesEnthusiasmImpulseSentimentsConceptionOrgansScarcePropheticGreat Minds
Book:Selections from the Works of Edward Everett: With a Sketch of His Life
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“Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.”

WorldWritingMindWould BeLiteratureLanguageCreativeGeniusEndlessFadesVaryFade AwayMazesBewilderedCreative Power
Book:The Complete Works of Washington Irving: Short Stories, Plays, Historical Works, Poetry and Autobiographical Writings (Illustrated): The Entire Opus of the Prolific American Writer, Biographer and Historian, Including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Bracebridge Hall and many more
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“If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.”

IfsMindFirstsChildrenSoulMatterMightLawSpiritOrderEnergyLanguageNaturalMemoriesForgetResultsTeachVirtueTeacherYouthFineGeniusJudgmentGloryOur ChildrenImpulseSuccess In LifeDependenceDispositionScopeEloquenceEndeavourVivacity
Author:Luc de Clapiers
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“Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, he developed a method of communication--but one which in its clumsiness and thick-thumbed inadequacy degenerated all the delicacy of the mind into gross and guttural signaling.”

MenMindCertainLanguageSoundEmotionCommunicationSpeechMethodSettingSettingsCombinationDevicesThickGrossArbitraryNuanceTransmitDelicacyInadequacyThoughts And EmotionsClumsiness
Book:Foundation Trilogy
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“Television is a new, hard test of our wisdom. If we succeed in mastering the new medium it will enrich us. But it can also put our mind to sleep. We must not forget that in the past the inability to transport immediate experience and to convey it to others made the use of language necessary and thus compelled the human mind to develop concepts. For in order to describe things one must draw the general from the specific; one must select, compare, think. When communication can be achieved by pointing with the finger, however, the mouth grows silent, the writing hand stops, and the mind shrinks.”

IfsThinkingWritingMindHumansMadeHardUseHandsPastOrderLanguageGrowsSleepForgetTelevisionCommunicationSucceedDrawsMouthsConceptsTestsSilentFingersMediumsCompareHuman MindCompelledInabilityPointingShrinksSelectTransportUse Of Language
Book:Film as Art
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“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?”

MindMeanArtEyeLanguageBlackWhiteExpressionReturnDrawingAcceptedConventionsBlack And WhiteConventionalAccustomedTranslationsObligedBeholder
Author:Eugene Delacroix
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“You have to seduce the reader, manipulate their mind and heart, listen to the music of language. I sometimes think of prose as music, in terms of its rhythms and dynamics, the way you compress and expand the attention of a reader over a sentence, the way the tempo pushes you towards an image or sensation. We want an intense experience, so that we can forget ourselves when we enter the world of the book. When you are reading, the physical object of the book should disappear from your hands.”

ThinkingWorldWayWantShouldWritingMindHeartBookSometimesHandsReadingLanguageTermForgetAttentionObjectsReaderSentencesDisappearIntenseRhythmProseSensationsHeart And MindManipulateTempoDynamicsSeducing
Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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“If Zen is approached with the usual mental attitude, it will seem quite incomprehensible. Our average Western intellectuality would consider its paradoxical language simply as a play upon words. Its full significance is revealed only when we approach it in a different manner, making our minds available to the new processes of inner perception which it suggests.”

IfsMindDifferentPlaySeemsLanguageProcessAttitudePerceptionApproachWesternAverageAvailableSignificanceUsualParadoxicalMental AttitudeNew Processes
Book:Living Zen
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“Art is universal. It unites mankind in common brotherhood. As a missionary of civilization, its message is both to heart and mind. Distinctions of tongue or boundary lines disappear before the power of truths, which, like the rainbow, charm by the beauty of variegated hues, or, combined with light, illuminate the universe. Moreover, art is the connecting link in the chain of great minds. Through its language, thought appeals to thought, and sympathy echoes feeling.”

MindHeartArtFeelingsLightUniverseLanguageLinesCommonMankindCivilizationMessagesArt IsUniversalTongueDisappearBoundariesChainsAppealsCharmDistinctionLinksBrotherhoodMissionaryRainbowEchoesHeart And MindConnectingHueGreat Minds
Book:Art-hints: Architecture, Sculpture and Painting
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“I think that metaphor really is a key to explaining thought and language. The human mind comes equipped with an ability to penetrate the cladding of sensory appearance and discern the abstract construction underneath - not always on demand, and not infallibly, but often enough and insightfully enough to shape the human condition. Our powers of analogy allow us to apply ancient neural structures to newfound subject matter, to discover hidden laws and systems in nature, and not least, to amplify the expressive power of language itself.”

ThinkingMindHumansMatterEnoughLawLanguageAbilityConditionsSubjectsKeysShapesDemandStructureAncientMetaphorAppearanceAbstractHuman MindConstructionHuman ConditionExplainingPenetrateSubject MatterAnalogiesSensoryExpressiveAmplifyPower Of Language
Book:The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
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“What's happening is the language. Not only in the usual sense of being interesting (which it is), but in the new sense that words are events, as real and important in themselves as wars and lovers... It is to the word, then, that the mind moves, and the word responds by taking on a physicality, even a sensuality, we have all been trained to ignore. Words have weight, and the distance between two can be a chasm filled with forces of association... What Clark is doing is genuinely new.”

MindTwoImportantWarRealMovingLanguageForceInterestingEventsLoversHappeningsWeightFilledDistanceSensualityUsualAssociationPhysicalityChasms
Author:Ron Silliman
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“I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.”

WantShouldWritingTryingMindPersonsLongMadeTwoLanguageFeltAudienceClearEconomicEconomicsIntelligentFellowsCarefulTwo ThingsEconomistPropositionsIntelligent Person
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
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“In many patriarchies, language, as well as cultural tradition, reserve the human condition for the male. With the Indo-European languages this is a nearly inescapable habit of mind, for despite all the customary pretense that 'man' and 'humanity' are terms which apply equally to both sexes, the fact is hardly obscured that in practice, general application favors the male far more often than the female as referent, or even sole referent, for such designations.”

MenMindHumansWellsFactsHumanityLanguageSexTermPracticeConditionsHabitFemaleTraditionMalesFavorsDespiteApplicationHuman ConditionSoleReservesPatriarchyPretenseHabits Of MindDesignation
Author:Kate Millett
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“Chloe Honum's brilliant first book The Tulip-Flame traces an identity forming within radically divergent but interlocking systems: a family traumatized by the mother's suicide, a failed relationship, the practice of ballet, a garden-each strict, exacting. And with 'a crow's sky-knowing mind,' Honum in every case transfigures emotion by way of elegant language and formal restraint. Chloe Honum is 'one astounding flame' of a poet, and I predict a long-lasting one.”

WayMindFirstsLongBookMotherLanguageEmotionPracticeCasesKnowingSkyIdentityPoetGardenSuicideBrilliantFlamesLastingBalletFormalStrictRestraintElegantCrowDivergentChloeLong LastingFailed Relationship
Author:Claudia Emerson
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