Quotessence
Home / Topics / Language Quotes

Language Quotes

Browse 9447 quotes about Language.

Related topics

IfsPeopleSpeakThinkingWorldWayUseWritingKnowsMenEnglish LanguageHumansBookDifferentMeanFirstsCommunicationTryingWantArtShouldCultureNeedsKindMayFeelsFormIdeasMindWellsDoeTwoCountryChildrenLiteratureBodyHas BeensYearsImportantGivingFeelingsHeartSaidUsedCommonStoriesFactsLittlesWrittenSpeechMadeStillsUniversalForeign LanguageLongLooksMusic IsSoulPersonsBelieveSometimesSoundI CanMatterRealityPoetTongueCommunicateRealReasonSeemsWholeUnderstandingWould BeAbleTermNamesTranslationsSilenceProblemProgrammingEnoughSentencesStatesExpressionEndsTogetherAgeOrderPlayCharacterDifficultCertainMathematicsPoliticalCoursesHelpingNaturalReadingBody Languagemore

Language Quotes

“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
Create image

“As the base rhetorician uses language to increase his own power, to produce converts to his own cause, and to create loyal followers of his own person - so the noble rhetorician uses language to wean men away from their inclination to depend on authority, to encourage them to think and speak clearly, and to teach them to be their own masters.”

ThinkingMenPersonsUseSpeakLanguageCausesTeachProduceMastersDependsAuthorityIncreaseNobleFollowersLoyalInclination
Author:Thomas Szasz
Create image

“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
Create image

“Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal.”

FirstsPersonsPurposeLanguageGoalCommunityEffortQualityPlanetsHighestAskingSingle PersonWikipediaEncyclopedia
Author:Jimmy Wales
Create image

“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
Create image

“No language can fitly express the meanness, the baseness, the brutality, with which the world has ever treated its victims of one age and boasts of the next. Dante is worshipped at that grave to which he was hurried by persecution. Milton, in his own day, was "Mr. Milton, the blind adder, that spit his venom on the king's person"; and soon after, "the mighty orb of song." These absurd transitions from hatred to apotheosis, this recognition just at the moment when it becomes a mockery, saddens all intellectual history.”

WorldPersonsMomentsAgeSongNextLanguageKingsIntellectualHatredVictimBlindGravesTreatedAbsurdRecognitionTransitionPersecutionBoastBrutalitySpitMockeryMeannessMiltonVenomBasenessOrbsApotheosisAdders
Book:Literature and life, lects
Create image

“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
Create image

“To me, a poem is almost like someone whispering to another person, or you hear the whispering in your head. I hope with my own poems that the reader feels a connection, soul to soul, that'll help us all feel a little less alone on the planet. And it does have the power to direct change. A writer can make the word 'dark' be something positive. You can relieve a word like 'hysterical' of its misogynistic implications. You can make the language your own. That's what poetry is about.”

FeelsLittlesPersonsDoeSoulHelpingLanguageDarkMy OwnPlanetsReaderDirectConnectionsPoetry IsImplicationsWhisperingHysterical
Author:Rita Dove
Create image

“I feel passionately about how I express myself. Language is the greatest motivating force. You can phrase something positively and inspire people to do their best, or negatively and make them feel worried, uncertain, and self-conscious. You can talk at a fast pace and people will get nervous, feel afraid to bring up extraneous thoughts. But those are the very thoughts that might be most important! They might represent that person's best thinking. If you're rushed, you're simply not going to get at that extra level of thinking.”

PeopleIfsThinkingFeelsPersonsImportantSelfMightLanguageForceLevelsInspireConsciousNervousWorriedPhrasesExtrasPaceUncertainPositivelySelf Conscious
Author:Frances Hesselbein
Create image

“If there is one sweeping generalization I can make without fear of contradiction, it is that 'change' is the scariest word in the English language Nothing will change in our lives until we change our own behavior. Insight won't do it. Understanding why we do the self-defeating things we do won't make us stop doing them. Nagging and pleading with the other person to change won't do it. We have to act. We have to take the first step down a new road.”

IfsFirstsPersonsI CanSelfLanguageUnderstandingStepsOur LivesBehaviorInsightContradictionFirst StepsEnglish LanguageSweepingGeneralizationPleadingNaggingNew RoadsUnderstanding Why
Author:Susan Forward
Create image

“I am a bohemian person. I don't speak German, and I live in a foreign country where all the signs are in German. I did that deliberately. I'm like a ghost. Look at how much media and advertising you're subjected to, this mindless chatter of advertising. I just block it out so effortlessly because it's all a foreign language to me. It's really a good thing for my head, living in Berlin.”

LooksPersonsCountrySpeakLanguageMediaGood ThingsGhostBlockAdvertisingBerlinMindlessChatterForeign LanguageForeign CountriesBohemian
Author:Anton Newcombe
Create image

“One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience.”

PersonsJobsTurnsLiteratureLanguageSingingDrawsTrainCatholicismGardeningGrammarJerseyNew JerseyUsagePunctuationForeign LanguagePlumbingShippingMozzarella
Book:Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Create image

“Beyond the formative effects of reading on the individuals composing society, the fact that they have read the same books gives them experiences and ideas in common. These constitute a kind of shorthand of ideas which helps make communication quicker and more efficient. That is what we mean when we say figuratively of another person, We speak the same language.”

GivingKindMeanPersonsBookIdeasFactsHelpingReadingIndividualSpeakLanguageCommonEffectsCommunicationEfficientComposingShorthand
Author:Charles Scribner IV
Create image