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language quotes

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“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.” George Orwell, 1984
“DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
“Definitions are rules for the translation of one language into another.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
“Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
“Only the language of civilized people may be spoken, thus no German.” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
“language . . . is the parent, and not the child, of thought.” Oscar Wilde, Intentions
“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” Confucius, Analects
“Teach me to speak the language of men.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes
“if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
“But remember, language is man’s way of communication with other people and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.” Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“We believe there is a common language that all technical civilizations, no matter how different, must have. That common language is science and mathematics.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“Beyond the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum: truculent language masked an inner hollowness” Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy
“A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.” Samuel Butler, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler
“Language!—the blood of the soul, Sir! into which our thoughts run and out of which they grow!” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast-Table
“Such is the magic of human languages, that by human accord often the same sounds mean different things.” Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
“Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has...” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that...” John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“English is the largest human tongue; its variety, subtlety, and irrational idiomatic complexity make it possible to say things in English which cannot be said in any other language.” Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“I learned that pilgrims from every land—every color, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike—all snored in the same language.” Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we were one people, with different tongues.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
“He wanted to cry quietly but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.” James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language;...” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
“In Kant's language, even 'Good morning,' suitably pronounced, can take the shape of a metaphysical thesis.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
“a fundamental quality in the female tradition . . . The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity.” G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
“The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
“an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.” Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
“Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily...” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Related topics

music truth words speech corruption understanding meaning thought politics soul universality humanity totalitarianism lies limits science world freedom success death

Related authors

George Orwell (3)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (2)
Milan Kundera (2)
Confucius (1)
Oscar Wilde (1)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
William Shakespeare (1)
Malcolm X (1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1)
Nelson Mandela (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Paulo Coelho (1)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Carl Sagan (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
John Green (1)
Anne Frank (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)

Related sources

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (2)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2)
Politics and the English Language (2)
Intentions (1)
1984 (1)
Analects (1)
Long Walk to Freedom (1)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1)
East of Eden (1)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
The Alchemist (1)
Walden (1)
The Blind Assassin (1)
Cosmos (1)
The Diary of a Young Girl (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1)
Through the Looking-Glass (1)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1)
Democracy in America (1)