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Language Quotes

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Language Quotes

“I am committed to writing appropriate books for the middle grades. This means no bad language, no gratuitous or explicit violence, and no sexual content beyond what you might find in a PG-rated movie – expressions of who likes whom, holding hands, and perhaps the occasional kiss. The idea that we should treat sexual orientation itself as an adults-only topic, however, is absurd. Non-heterosexual children exist. To pretend they do not, to fail to recognize that they have needs for support and validation like any child, would be bad teaching, bad writing, and bad citizenship.”

NeedsShouldWritingMeanChildrenBookIdeasHandsMightWould BeLanguageSupportViolenceFailingTeachingMiddleExpressionKissingAdultsTreatsCommittedLikesAbsurdGradesAppropriateCitizenshipTopicsOccasionalOrientationValidationExplicitHolding HandsBad WritingBad Language
Author:Rick Riordan
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“You can compare it to dreams: you have a very specific and individual pictorial language that you either accept or that you can translate rashly and wrongly. Of course, you can ignore dreams, but that would be a shame, because they're useful.”

DreamWould BeCoursesIndividualLanguageAcceptingShameCompareTranslateDreams You HavePictorial
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

FeelsEnoughWould BeIndividualLanguageCausesAttentionConditionsViolentAlternativesTonightOur SocietyRebellionRiotIrresponsibleUnheardCondemning
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ...But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.”

IfsWellsDoeSometimesEnoughWould BeBeautifulLanguageImpossibleModernExpressionLimitsTongueNonsenseLatinTranslateSevereCompassOne WordUnreasonableProprietyTranslatorsBarbarity
Author:John Dryden
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“The old view was that delicacy of language was part of the nature, the sacred nature, of eros and that to speak about it in any other way would be to misunderstand it. What has disappeared is the risk and the hope of human connectedness embedded in eros. Ours is a language that reduces the longing for an other to the need for individual, private satisfaction and safety.”

WayNeedsHumansWould BeIndividualSpeakLanguageViewsRiskSafetySacredLongingSatisfactionEmbeddedDelicacyConnectednessEros
Author:Allan Bloom
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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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“We are living in a society that is totally dependent on science and high technology, and yet most of us are effectively alienated and excluded from its workings, from the values of science, the methods of science, and the language of science. A good place to start would be for as many of us as possible to begin to understand the decision-making and the basis for those decisions, and to act independently and not be manipulated into thinking one thing or another, but to learn how to think. That's what science does.”

ThinkingDoeWould BeValuesLanguageDecisionTechnologyOne ThingBasesMethodDependentDecision MakingExcludedGood PlaceHigh Technology
Author:Ann Druyan
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“It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.”

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Author:Edward Sapir
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“To require conformity in the appreciation of sentiments or the interpretation of language, or uniformity of thought, feeling, or action, is a fundamental error in human legislation -- a madness which would be only equaled by requiring all men to possess the same countenance, the same voice or the same stature.”

MenHumansFeelingsWould BeActionLanguageVoiceDiversityMadnessFundamentalsErrorsAppreciationInterpretationSentimentsConformityIndividualismLegislationCollectivismCountenanceStatureUniformity
Book:Equitable Commerce: A New Development of Principles for the Harmoneous Adjustment and Regulation of the Pecuniary,intellectual,and Moral Intercourse of Mankind,proposed as Elements of New Society
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“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right.”

IfsWayArtSaidBookWould BeEnergyLanguageTroubleBrotherProveAmbitionSolutionsCriminalsSuperiorsObservationAgentsMy BrotherReasoningDetectivesDeductionsVerifyArmchairsNo Energy
Book:The Best of Sherlock Holmes
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“When I heard the book (Thomas Friedman's latest) was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays.”

WritingHumansTwoBookWould BeLanguageWorryHeardGeniusCriticismInnocentMake SenseFeaturesLengthReviewsPassagesInvitesUsualComing OutEssaysIncompetenceRatiosSingle Word
Author:Matt Taibbi
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“For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels-at the very least with the tongues of angels-they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.”

IfsGivingWould BeEyeBeautifulSongSpeakLanguageFeltVoiceAnimalCenturyPoetReaderSorrowEmpathyAngelSkinsTongueSavedMysteriousShellsCoatsOtherness
Book:Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals
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“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The 'thing in itself' (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche
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“One of the most gracious dispensations of God concerning His saints is their lovely unawareness of sanctity. The nearer they move to Him, the more conscious are they of sin. If it were impossible at times not to note their own growth in grace, it were impossible also to forget that it was all by His power. If they could be persuaded to admit their progress and talk of it at all, the language of their heart would be this: 'If God could do this in me, He could do it in anyone”

IfsHeartWould BeMovingLanguageGrowthSinForgetGraceProgressImpossibleConsciousNotesSaintLovelyGraciousSanctityUnawareness
Author:Bill Vaughan
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“I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire languages, etiquette, personality, oratory ... One gathers that twelve minutes a day would be hopelessly inadequate, and twenty minutes a wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

Would BeLanguageWonderLearningMinutesPersonalityTwentiesRidiculousAcquireExcessConventionsTwelveFifteenMinimumMaximumEtiquetteInadequateSanctityOratory
Author:Agnes Repplier
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“Money, after all, is an abstract artifact, like language - merely symbolized by the paper or coin or whatever. If you can fully grasp its abstractedness, especially in the computer age, it becomes quite clear that no group can monopolize this abstraction, except through a series of swindle. If the usurers had been bolder, they might have monopolized language as well as currency, and people would be saying we can't write more books because we don't have enough words, the way they now say we can't build starships, because we don't have enough money.”

PeopleIfsWayWritingWellsBookEnoughMightWould BeAgeLanguageClearGroupsPaperComputerSeriesAbstractCurrencyCoinsAbstractionArtifacts
Author:Robert Anton Wilson
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“Filmmaking materials are in the hands of more people now than ever before. I would like to think that the more people have these tools, the more people will learn how to use them, it's another argument I would argue for, personally, for art's education. Because there are kids who aren't that literate in screen language and they've got to know how people select shots, how people edit audio, how people combine things to make what they see on the screen. It would be like the 15th century or the 16th century in Germany, and somebody amends a printing press and you don't know how to read and write.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWritingArtUseHandsWould BeKidsLanguageKnow HowCenturyMaterialsShotsArgumentToolsPressesScreensArguingGermanyFilmmakingSelectEditsPrintingPrinting PressAudioAmends
Author:Murray Horwitz
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“Let it be signified to me through any channelthat the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, andin sixty days it will be accomplished. ...penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favors and not rights.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Sexuality is primarily a means of communicating with other people, a way of talking to them, of expressing our feelings about ourselves and them. It is essentially a language, a body language, in which one can express gentleness and affection, anger and resentment, superiority and dependence far more succinctly than would be possible verbally, where expressions are unavoidably abstract and often clumsy.”

PeopleWayMeanFeelingsBodyWould BeLanguageSexTalkingExpressionAffectionCommunicateSexualityAbstractResentmentSuperiorityDependenceGentlenessClumsyBody LanguageAnger And ResentmentWay Of TalkingCommunicating With Others
Book:From Hegel to Existentialism
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