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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“It has unfortunately now become a habit for so many generations, that it has almost passed into an instinct throughout the Jewish body, to rely upon the weapon of secrecy. Secret societies, a language kept as far as possible secret, the use of false names in order to hide secret movements, secret relations between various parts of the Jewish body: all these and other forms of secrecy have become the national method.”

UseBodyFormOrderNamesLanguageSecretGenerationsMovementHabitWeaponsRelationMethodInstinctJewVariousRelySecrecyRely UponSecret Society
Book:Belloc: A Biographical Anthology
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“But once an original book has been written - and no more than one or two appear in a century - men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”

MenShouldWritingHas BeensTwoBookDifferentUseAbleCoursesLanguageWrittenCenturyLettersOriginalsTitlesThemeCopiesApesImitatorUse Of Language
Book:Planet of the Apes
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“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.”

MadeSoulUseBodyTogetherSpiritLanguageResultsDesignProduceExpressionMastersWorshipPraiseInstrumentsVisibleInternalsWorking TogetherMakersAestheticMaximumViolinBody LanguageTailorsPraise And WorshipConsonanceBody Soul And Spirit
Author:Lamar Boschman
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“Science starts with preconception, with the common culture, and with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to use these corrections for the designing of further observation and for more refined experiment. And as it moves along this course the nature of the evidence and experience that nourish it becomes more and more unfamiliar; it is not just the language that is strange [to common culture].”

UseMovingScienceCultureCoursesLanguageCommonDesignStrangeEvidenceDiscoveryConcernedExperimentsCommon SenseObservationParadoxRefinedUnfamiliarCorrectionsPreconceptionsCommon Culture
Author:J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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 bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.”

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Book:The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
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“Evolution is a theory in a special philosophical sense of science, but in terms of ordinary laymen's use of language, it's a fact, .. Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it's a fact that the Earth is round and not flat, [that] the Earth goes round the Sun. Both those are also theories, but they're theories that have never been disproved and never will be disproved.”

FactsUseEarthLanguageTermSunSpecialTheoryEvolutionOrdinaryPhilosophicalRoundsFlatsLaymanUse Of Language
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“Harmony is an obscure and difficult musical science, but most difficult to those who are not acquainted with the Greek language; because it is necessary to use many Greek words to which there are none corresponding in Latin.”

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Book:The Architecture of M. Vitruvius Pollio in Ten Books, Translated from the Latin by J. Gwilt
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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.”

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Author:Steve Jobs
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“You and I must realize that the English language is filled with words that, in addition to their literal meanings, convey distinct emotional intensity. For example, if you develop a habit of saying you 'hate' things - you 'hate' your hair; you 'hate' your job; you 'hate' having to do something - do you think this raises the intensity of your negative emotional states more than if you use a phrase like 'I prefer something else'?”

IfsThinkingStatesUseMotivationalJobsHateLanguageRealizingExampleEmotionalHairHabitNegativeRaisesFilledPhrasesIntensityEnglish LanguageLiteralJobs You Hate
Book:Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial
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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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“It is that holy poetry and singing we are after. ... It is the wild singing we are after, our chance to use the wild language we are learning by heart under the sea. When a woman speaks her truth, fires up her intention and feeling, staying tight with the instinctive nature, she is singing, she is living in the wild breath-stream of the soul. To live this way is a cycle in itself, one meant to go on, go on, go on.”

WayHeartSoulUseFeelingsSpeakLanguageChanceFireSeaGoes OnHolySingingBreathsIntentionStreamsStayingCycles
Author:Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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“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.”

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Author:Thomas Szasz
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“The selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.”

ShouldUseArtistLanguageInstinctPhrasesSuggestionsSimplestDistinguishedGreat WritersSelectiveTrivialityHomely
Book:The Principles of Success in Literature
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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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“Whereas, according to the declaration of that true man of the world Talleyrand, the use of language is to conceal the thoughts; this is to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear much talking, it means really, and without any mistake, or equivocation, or oblique meaning, or implication, or subterfuge, or omission, that I am not able; being at present rather weak in the head, and able to work no more.”

MenWorldMeanUseAbleLanguageMistakeTalkingBearsWeakInstanceDeclarationImplicationsOmissionTrue ManUse Of LanguageSubterfuge
Author:Michael Faraday
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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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“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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“I believe C++ instills fear in programmers, fear that the interaction of some details causes unpredictable results. Its unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn human brain with irrelevant details.”

ShouldBelieveHumansDoeHas BeensWholeUseLanguageI BelieveCausesResultsBrainSolutionsToolsShould HaveDetailsComplexityInteractionUnpredictableIrrelevantShould Have BeenProgrammersPreventingHuman BrainInstillOverload
Author:Erik Naggum
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