Best 3547 quotes in «language quotes» category

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

The locust has no king Just noise and hard language They talk me over

The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern novel, screenplay and even non-fiction.

The logic of the symbol does not express the experiment; it is the experiment. Language is the phenomenon, and the observation of the phenomenon changes its nature.

The manner of Hamann's writing here is also part of the argument. The rhetorical aspect cannot, as we saw above, just be subtracted in order to arrive at 'the argument'. Hamann enacts his suspicion of the reduction of philosophical language to abstract foundations via his rhetorical verve. It should be apparent, then, that Hamann's position cannot be regarded as questionable just because of its employment of rhetoric. Whatever else one may think of it, the position is internally consistent. The attempt to rid philosophy of rhetoric falls prey precisely to the fact that what is involved in rhetoric is inherent in what is built into all natural languages by their genesis in the real historical world.

The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic.

The Minotaur lacks confidence in his penmanship. Over time the Minotaur has learned to read, has even been able to make the slow laborious transition from one language to another as cultures die off and fade away as he moves from place to place. But the Minotaur has never been able to rise above rudimentary skills. Most books seem ridiculously small, and the physical act of finding a comfortable sight line over his massive snout frustrates him. Nevertheless the Minotaur is haunted by the idea that books and reading might make those vast stretches of time that loom before him more bearable.

The more clearly we are able to express ourselves, the less room there is for ambiguity. The more elaborate and the more precise our vocabulary, the greater the scope for thought and expression. Language is about subtlety and nuance. It is power and it is potent. We can woo with words and we can wound. Despots fear the words of the articulate opponent. Successful revolutions are achieved with words as much as with weapons.

The most elegant of the dialects belongs to those who know only one language, who do not mix with Persians and who do not customarily settle in other lands. Those who have two languages and who mix with the populace of the cities have a certain slurring in their utterances.

the most important things can't be lassoed with language. The most important things can only be felt.

The most satisfying of languages, Latin.

The most self-damaging words in the English language are: try, might, and if. These are words of uncertainty. Will you fail? That is possible. But continue doubting your abilities and you’ll never succeed.

The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.

The nature of poems Is a matter of words and deeds An intimate encounter of voice In the ache of the heart In the labor of breathing A hesitant casting of eyes Away from the mundane to see That delicate and shiny thing In the oddly prosaic rock pile An extravagance of conceit An abundance of grace A prayer for words to speak

The name one gives is inessential. What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by other name would smell as sweet.

Then, as now, I believe that the English use language to hide what they mean.

The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.

The next night, alone in the tent, Laurent said: 'As we draw closer to the border, I think it would be safer--more private--to hold our discussions in your language rather than mine.' He said it in carefully pronounced Akielon. Damen stared at him, feeling as though the world had just been rearranged. 'What is it?' said Laurent. 'Nice accent,' said Damen, because despite everything, the corner of his mouth was beginning helplessly to curve up. [...] It was of course no surprise to find that Laurent had a well-stocked armoury of elegant phrases and bitchy remarks, but could not talk in detail about anything sensible.

The next time you wish you could find the right words to say to someone who is hurting, just remember that dogs are a man's best friend without ever speaking a word to them. Simply be present and have sympathy.

Then I give her a grim shake of my head and say aloud, 'This blows ass.' She nods sympathetically. She doesn't understand, but of course, in her way she understands completely.

Then she said a good ruler has to learn his world’s language, that it’s different for every world. And I thought she meant they didn’t speak Galach on Arrakis, but she said that wasn’t it at all. She said she meant the language of the rocks and growing things, the language you don’t hear just with your ears. And I said that’s what Dr. Yueh calls the Mystery of Life.” Hawat chuckled. “How’d that sit with her?” “I think she got mad. She said the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. So I quoted the First Law of Mentat at her: 'A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

The nurturing of moral is the language, and control of the ego is the eye of the soul.

The official JLPT guide states that JLPT N3 level is roughly equivalent to Japanese Grades 1 through 4 in terms of kanji and vocabulary content with approximately 650 Kanji made up of Grade 1 (80), Grade 2 (160) Grade 3 (200) and Grade 4 (200) and 3750 vocabulary

The only justification for the application of NLP patterns is the creation of choice and precisely in the context in which choice presently does not exist.

The only substance that goes in and never leaves, are words

The passive voice could always be used to obscure blame.

The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance starts when you try to convert it into language. Language itself is a kind of resistance to the pure flow of self.

The original charge of both the academy and the church was to be places that nurture the mind and the spirit. That mission involved both institutions deeply and consistently in producing and practicing poetry and in the play of the mind and imagination that required. For a good part of Western history, churchmen were expected and trained to be wordsmiths. What we see in the best of them - the theologians and the scholars, as well as the poets - is a capacity for play. Not humor - now always - though that is certainly one mark of the Spirit, but the receptive, intuitive readiness to recognize grace in any form and respond, the willingness both to obey and to suspend rules according to the demands of the situation - in a word, wit.

The photographic image is a message without a code.

The physicist had no time to waste on a symbol; his concern was with what the symbol denoted. To the typesetter the symbol and its denotation were bound in an organic unity. There was a meaning to the symbol itself which only the typesetter could appreciate.

The powerful intellect leashed by an impoverished vocabulary is a myth. Without a vocabulary, a language, the intellect cannot develop.

The polyglot is a linguistic nomad.

The power of language transcends the need for survival, and the components of the human brain required for it are too complex and advanced to have developed over time.

The predominant cancer metaphor is war. We fight cancer, usually valiantly. We attack tumors and try to annihilate them and bring out our arsenals to do that, and so on. It's us against cancer. This metaphor has come in for its share of criticism within the ethical, psychological and even oncological disciplines. A main concern is that when someone dies of cancer, the message that remains is that that person just hasn't fought hard enough, was not a brave enough soldier against the ultimate foe, did not really want to win. The cancer-is-war metaphor does not seem to allow space for the idea that in actual war, some soldiers die heroically for the larger good, no matter which side wins. War is death. In the cancer war, if you die, you've lost and cancer has won. The dead are responsible not just for getting cancer, but also for failing to defeat it.

The poems that used to entrance me in the days of Miss Violence now struck me as overdone and sickly. Alas, burthen, thine, cometh, aweary—the archaic language of unrequited love. I was irritated with such words, which rendered the unhappy lovers—I could now see—faintly ridiculous, like poor moping Miss Violence herself. Soft-edged, blurry, soggy, like a bun fallen into the water. Nothing you'd want to touch,

The power of language. Preserving the ephemeral; giving form to dreams, permanence to sparks of sunlight.

The problem Creationists identify is with the word 'theory', not with the case for evolution

The problem, of course, is that languages are not only languages. They're also worldviews -- and therefore, to some extent, untranslatable ...

The proper use of language, for me personally, is one that enables us to approach things (present or absent) with discretion, attention, and caution, with respect for what things (present or absent) communicate without words.

The real trouble is this: giving expression to thought by the observable medium of words is like the work of the silkworm. In being made into silk, the material achieves its value. But in the light of day it stiffens; it becomes something alien, no longer malleable. True, we can then more easily and freely recall the same thought, but perhaps we can never experience it again in its original freshness.

The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. It is only necessary to be precise when there is some doubt as to the meaning of a phrase, and then the precision should be put in the place where the doubt exists. It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.

There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.

The question ‘Why poetry?’ isn’t asking what makes poetry unique among art forms; poetry may indeed share its origins with other forms of privileged utterance. A somewhat more interesting question would be: “What is the nature of experience, and especially the experience of using language, that calls poetic utterance into existence? What is there about experience that’s unutterable?” You can’t generalize very usefully about poetry; you can’t reduce its nature down to a kernel that underlies all its various incarnations. I guess my internal conversation suggests that if you can’t successfully answer the question of “Why poetry?,” can’t reduce it in the way I think you can’t, then maybe that’s the strongest evidence that poetry’s doing its job; it’s creating an essential need and then satisfying it.

The reading of great books has been a life-altering activity to me and, for better or worse, brought me singing and language-obsessed to that country where I make my living. Except for teaching, I’ve had no other ambition in life than to write books that mattered.

There are no barriers to poetry or prophecy; by their nature they are barrier-breakers, bursts of perceptions, lines into infinity. If the poet lies about his vision he lies about himself and in himself; this produces a true barrier.

There are so many words in our language; we get to know so few of them.

There are other reasons we use math in physics. Besides keeping us honest, math is also the most economical and unambiguous terminology that we know of. Language is malleable; it depends on context and interpretation. But math doesn’t care about culture or history. If a thousand people read a book, they read a thousand different books. But if a thousand people read an equation, they read the same equation.

There are thousands of languages around the world, but love is the most beautiful of them all.

...there are no sweeter words in the English language (or any other) than husband and wife.

There are objects made up of two sense elements, one visual, the other auditory—the colour of a sunrise and the distant call of a bird. Other objects are made up of many elements—the sun, the water against the swimmer's chest, the vague quivering pink which one sees when the eyes are closed, the feeling of being swept away by a river or by sleep. These second degree objects can be combined with others; using certain abbreviations, the process is practically an infinite one. There are famous poems made up of one enormous word, a word which in truth forms a poetic object, the creation of the writer. The fact that no one believes that nouns refer to an actual reality means, paradoxically enough, that there is no limit to the numbers of them.