quotations about language
The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
"On Language", The American Democrat
Perhaps the sad and empty language that today's flabby humanity pours forth, will, in all its horror, in all its boundless absurdity, re-echo in the heart of a solitary man who is awake, and then perhaps that man, suddenly realizing that he does not understand, will begin to understand.
ARTHUR ADAMOV
The Confession
Language was invented for one reason, boys -- to woo women.
N. H. KLEINBAUM
Dead Poets Society
Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
GEORGE ORWELL
The English People
Language is easy for us to learn and use because language, like a living organism, has evolved in a symbiotic relationship with humans. Language has adapted to what our brains can do, rather than the other way around.
LINDA B. GLASER
"New book reintegrates the science of language", Cornell Chronicle, April 4, 2016
Language is an art, and a glorious one, whose influence extends over all others, and in which all science whatever must center; but an art springing from necessity, and originally invented by artless men.
J. H. TOOKE
attributed, Day's Collacon
In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?
PABLO NERUDA
The Book of Questions
In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned.
RICHARD DUPPA
Maxims
All true language is incomprehensible, Like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Ci-Git
We must now turn from considering the necessary struggle with language arising, as it were, from its very nature and the nature of the society it serves to the more ominous threat to its integrity brought about neither by its innate inadequacy nor yet by the incompetence and carelessness of its ordinary users, but rather engineered deliberately by those who will manipulate words for their own ends.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
Speech is a rolling press that always amplifies one's emotions.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Madame Bovary
In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner.
EDMUND BURKE
Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?
Evolution teaches us the original purpose of language was to ritualize men's threats and curses, his spells to compel the gods; communication came later.
GENE WOLFE
"The Death of Doctor Island", Universe 3
Since individuals think in the language in which they speak, thought processes are limited to words and concepts within that language. If a word for a concept doesn't exist in that language, it cannot be thought. Because language is the cornerstone of thinking and culture, as the languages around the world die out, ways of thinking become restricted.
JORDAN RYDER
"Native American Student Association to Stage Screening of Language Loss Documentary", Daily Iowan, March 29, 2016
Language is not a wonderful natural asset; it is an artificial device that constantly misleads us and does us great harm; and the modern way of studying language is itself harmful because it enhances the reputation of language and sustains corrupt ways of thought.
AMOREY GETHIN
introduction, Language and Thought: A Rational Enquiry Into Their Nature and Relationship
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
MARK TWAIN
Innocents Abroad
Language, which is the uniting bond and very medium of communion between men, is at the same time by the great variety of tongues, the means of severing and estranging nations more than anything else.
HORACE SMITH
The Tin Trumpet: Or, Heads and Tails, for the Wise and Waggish
Language is originally and essentially nothing but a system of signs or symbols, which denote real occurrences, or their echo in the human soul.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Language is a living original; it is not made but grows. The growth of language repeats the growth of the plant; at first it is only root, next it puts forth a stem, then leaves, and finally blossoms.
WILLIAM SWINTON
Rambles Among Words: Their Poetry, History and Wisdom