Best Written Language Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Creatures other than humans might also be poets; they could have been communicating in poetry among themselves. However, they do not and cannot write. To write, one must possess a written language and the ability to express thoughts in written form. Therefore, those of us who have a written language must make an effort to put our thoughts into writing.”

Writing Poetry Language Expression Communication Thoughts Poets Written Language Writing Effort

Author:Suman Pokhrel

“The spoken language is a symbolization of something that happened, could have happened, or is in the process of happening, while the written language is a symbolization of the spoken language. James Joyce, for example, dedicated his life to trying to close the gap between the two systems. In Finnegans Wake, Joyce portrays in writing the workings of the verbal parts of the brain.”

Written Language Spoken Language James Joyce Symbolization

Book:Beyond Culture

Source: Beyond Culture

“Civilization could not exist until there was written language, because without written language no generation could bequeath to succeeding generations anything but its simpler findings.”

Language Written Generations Civilization Succeed Findings Written Language

Author:Charlton Laird

“Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.”

Writing Secret Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Writing By Writers Writing Style Famous Writers Written Language

Author:Matthew Arnold

“The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.”

Mind Humans Eye Language Stars Difficult Written Air Wind Ears Clouds Substance Human Mind Human Eyes Written Language Spoken Language

Book:The Wilderness Journeys

Source: The Wilderness Journeys

“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.”

Men Way Looks May Use Language Written Stage Conversation Reflection Regard Profanity Family Man Written Language

Book:States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America

Source: States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”

Ideas War Failing Sarcasm Sarcastic Miscellaneous Handy Written Language Language Words

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“This is what happens when the discourse of publishing, defined and driven by spoken and written language, is talked about in exactly the same vocabulary and syntax as any widgetmaking industry. Books are reformulated as 'product' - like screwdrivers or flea-bombs or soap - and the majority of writers are perceived as typists with bad attitudes.”

Book Happens Language Attitude Written Products Industry Majority Driven Defined Bombs Publishing Discourse Vocabulary Soap Fleas Bad Attitude Syntax Written Language Screwdrivers

Author:Suzette Haden Elgin

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

“I try to make the voice in my head come out onto the page. I try to make it much more conversational than other writing. I speak everything, so if something sounds right I write it. It's more about sound and the rhythm of speech than written language.”

Ifs Writing Trying Speak Language Sound Voice Written Speech Pages Rhythm Written Language Voices In My Head

Author:James Frey

“Thoughts are created in the act of writing. [It is a myth that] you must have something to say in order to write. Reality: You often need to write in order to have anything to say. Thought comes with writing, and writing may never come if it is postponed until we are satisfied that we have something to say...The assertion of write first, see what you had to say later applies to all manifestations of written language, to letters...as well as to diaries and journals”

Ifs Needs Writing Firsts Wells May Reality Order Language Written Letters Myth Satisfied Manifestation Journal Diaries Assertion Written Language

Author:Frank Smith

“Education is a technology that tries to make up for what the human mind is innately bad at. Children don't have to go to school to learn how to walk, talk, recognize objects, or remember the personalities of their friends, even though these tasks are much harder than reading, adding, or remembering dates in history. They do have to go to school to learn written language, arithmetic, and science, because those bodies of knowledge and skill were invented too recently for any species-wide knack for them to have evolved.”

Trying Mind Humans Children Body School Remember Reading Language Walks Technology Written Objects Personality Skills Tasks Harder Species Wide Human Mind Arithmetic Knack Written Language

Author:Steven Pinker

“It is difficult to disturb the common usage of Korean that is bent to the perspective of a male-oriented society. Korean society is based on both a politics and history that have been disguised as a solid society of solid male poems, a solid written language, fixed rules of how to write literature, and a narrative language.”

Writing Has Beens Literature Language Difficult Common Written Perspective Males Narrative Fixed Bent Korean Usage Written Language

Author:Kim Hyesoon

“One of the things I love about translation is it obliterates the self. When I'm trying to figure out what Tu Fu has to say, I have to kind of impersonate Tu Fu. I have to take on, if you will, his voice and his skin in English, and I have to try to get as deeply into the poem as possible. I'm not trying to make an equivalent poem in English, which can't be done because our language can't accommodate the kind of metaphors within metaphors the Chinese written language can, and often does, contain.”

Ifs Trying Kind Doe Self Done Language Voice Written Figures Skins Metaphor Chinese Translations Accommodate Things I Love Written Language Impersonate

Author:Sam Hamill

“Every big company has some little guy who is an enthusiast off in the corner working on technology. In Japan, it is integrated into their high-level strategy. They see it as a communication medium, because for them, just the words - and this is the problem that they have with Americans - just the words they say to you is not the complete message. Their facial expressions, their body language, there is a lot of context. Also, their written language doesn't translate to keyboards well.”

“In Japan, their written language doesn't translate to keyboards well. So they have problem communicating with computers, so they really feel that what's missing from telephones and computer interfaces is this ability to move around in three-space.”

Feels Wells Problem Moving Three Language Ability Space Written Missing Computer Communicate Japan Translate Telephones Keyboards Interfaces Written Language

Author:Howard Rheingold

“This is the power of images, the ambiguity. You are never completely sure of anything. With written language, it's more concrete. You have to establish some facts, but in movies, you see things happening, and the exact meaning behind the images is more ambiguous.”

Facts Language Behinds Written Happenings Things Happen Concrete Ambiguity Ambiguous Written Language

Author:Albert Serra

“Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.”

“Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.”

Writing Ends Speak Language Speech Understood English Language Few Words Ostentation Written Language Writing Words Language Words Plain Language Words You Speak

Book:Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life

Source: Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life

“Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.”

Knows Persons Literature Language Written Disadvantages Written Language Spoken English

Author:Marilyn vos Savant

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Should Writing Reason Lines Should Have Machines Sentences Drawing Unnecessary Vigorous Paragraph Brevity Concise Written Language

Author:William Strunk, Jr.

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”

Writing Doubt Written Strikes Writers And Writing Adjectives When In Doubt Famous Writers Written Language Writing Words Editing And Writing

Author:Mark Twain

“Here is how you know someone has had a good idea: Other people freely admit to their friends that said idea has changed their lives. Most people today will grant that fire and the wheel are the big two. After that, any attempts to rank the greatest ideas of all time are going to draw lots of argument. You’ll have zealots pimping this god or that on the one hand, scientists pimping Darwin on the other, and then practical people pointing at written language and saying, look, fellas, the reason those ideas have gone viral is because someone figured out how to write them down.”

Source: The Iron Druid Chronicles 6-Book Bundle: Hounded, Hexed, Hammered, Tricked, Trapped, Hunted

“I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”

Writing Believe I Believe Written Crafts Editing Pencils Great Writers Writers And Writing Revision Great Writing Rewriting Scissors Art Of Writing Written Language Writing From Famous Authors Editing And Writing

Book:Conversations with Capote

Source: Conversations with Capote

“Men of few words are the best men." (3.2.41)”

Men Few Words Written Language

Author:William Shakespeare

“Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.”

Humans Language Written Human Nature Speech Written Language Artificiality

Book:Modes of Thought

Source: Modes of Thought

“The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.”

Ifs Writing Important Language Cutting Lessons Trade Fats Manuscripts Important Lessons Written Language

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“The shorter and the plainer the better.”

Writing Language Written Language

Author:Beatrix Potter

“One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.”

Should Writing Language Impossible Aim Written Language

Author:Quintilian

“Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”

Writing Ideas Written Ought Paper Difficulty Composition Paragraph Writers Reading Written Language Squandering Plain Language Difficulty Of Writing

Book:Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868

Source: Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868

“Use the smallest word that does the job.”

Writing Doe Use Jobs Language Smallest Written Language

Author:E. B. White

“He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.”

Writing Use Language Subjects Ink Explaining Written Word Written Language Using Words Writing Words Cuttlefish

Author:John Ray

“Taste and smell are often the beggars among our five senses - they leave no written language and therefore no standards other than wholly personal ones. Tasting a superlative Moselle wine can be an aesthetic experience no less genuine than hearing a Mozart piano concerto or seeing for the first time an original Breughel painting.”

“Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.”

Should Language Imagination Written Communication Imaginative English Language Written Language Plain Language

Book:On the Constitution of the Church and State

Source: On the Constitution of the Church and State

“Written language must be considered as a particular psychic reality. The book is permanent; it is an object in your field of vision. It speaks to you with a monotonous authority which even its author would not have. You are fairly obliged to read what is written.”

Book Reality Speak Language Vision Written Fields Objects Particular Authority Permanent Psychics Obliged Monotonous Written Language

Author:Gaston Bachelard

“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.”

Language Subjects Communication Fame Self Improvement English Language Public Speaking Speaking In Public Written Language

Author:Cato the Elder

“In an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogenous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language.”

Different Running Age Literature Language Differences Written Risk Media Communication Function Following Surface Bent Sharpening Written Language

Author:Italo Calvino

“The major accomplishment of analyzing illiteracy so far has been the listing of symptoms: the decrease in functional literacy; a general degradation of writing skills and reading comprehension; an alarming increase of packaged language (cliches used in speeches, canned messages); and a general tendency to substitute visual media (especially television and video) for written language.”

Source: The Civilization of Illiteracy

“Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.”

“A drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Should Writing Lines Should Have Machines Drawing Unnecessary Vigorous Paragraph Brevity Concise Written Language

Author:William Strunk, Jr.

“The earliest language was body language and, since this language is the language of questions, if we limit the questions, and if we only pay attention to or place values on spoken or written language, then we are ruling out a large area of human language.”

Ifs Humans Body Values Language Pay Attention Written Limits Areas Pay Attention Ruling Body Language Human Language Written Language

Author:Paulo Freire

“When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.”

Language Memories Ability Space Written Happened Share Presses Radio Insight Things Happen Invention Time And Space Printing Printing Press Telegraph Written Language

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.”

Writing Made Language Simple Simplicity Finest English Language Few Words Written Language Language Words Plain Language

Author:George Eliot

“The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.”

Writing Language Virtue Clarity Chiefs Editing Unfamiliar Clearness Written Language Plain Language

Author:Hippocrates

“Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”

Writing Mind Sides Unnecessary Editing Written Language

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Literacy, written language is a very late acquisition in terms of human evolution.”

Humans Language Term Written Evolution Late Literacy Acquisition Human Evolution Written Language

Author:Jean Berko Gleason

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Written Language Quotes