Language Quotes - Page 25

Dance is the pure language of the soul - it's been with us from the very beginning.

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

You learned the concept 'pain' when you learned language.

Poetry is the language of extremity. Poetry is a transfer of potency. You feel something potent and then you transfer it onto the page.

Ideas do not exist separately from language.

The dictionary is based on the hypothesis -- obviously an unproven one -- that languages are made up of equivalent synonyms.

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

Thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive therefrom.

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.

The official language of the State of Illinois shall be known hereafter as the American language, and not the English language.

Languages exist by arbitrary institutions and conventions among peoples; words, as the dialecticians tell us, do not signify naturally, but at our pleasure.

No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.

Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.

Realistically, English is a universal language; it's the number one language for music and for communicating with the rest of the world.

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or understand or explore.

Silence is no weakness of language. It is, on the contrary, its strength. It is the weakness of words not to know this.

Even if someone knew the entire physical history of the world, and every mental event were identical with a physical, it would notfollow that he could predict or explain a single mental event (so described, of course).

We like to assume that language is a purely human property, our exclusive possession, and that everything else is basically mute.

I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language - always the language - was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

Profound thought is conveyed in language of very great simplicity and purity.

Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly.

Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language.