# Quotes about language

- Quotes: 220
- Authors: 136
- Broader topic: [Quotes about words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)
- Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language
- JSON version (same data): https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.json

## Quotes

> Language is the source of misunderstandings.

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/antoine-de-saint-exupery.md) · [The Little Prince](https://www.leafyquotes.com/antoine-de-saint-exupery/the-little-prince.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/antoine-de-saint-exupery/the-little-prince/language-is-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Born in Provence, he [Bishop Myriel] easily became familiar with all the [Occitan] dialects of the South. [...] People loved this, and it had helped him greatly to get close to all kinds of temperaments. Whether he was in a cottage or up in a mountain, he would feel at home. He knew how to speak of the highest things using the lowliest vulgar expressions. By speaking every tongue, he entered every soul.

[Victor Hugo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo.md) · [Les Miserables](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/born-in-provence.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> He who does not speak foreign languages knows nothing about his own.

[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe.md) · [Maxims and Reflections](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections/he-who-does.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

[Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein.md) · [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein/tractatus-logico-philosophicus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein/tractatus-logico-philosophicus/the-limits-of-my-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.

[Ludwig Wittgenstein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein.md) · [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein/tractatus-logico-philosophicus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ludwig-wittgenstein/tractatus-logico-philosophicus/the-whole-sense.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [silence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence.md)

> There's no such thing as dead languages, only dormant minds.

[Carlos Ruiz Zafón](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlos-ruiz-zafon.md) · [La Sombra del Viento](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlos-ruiz-zafon/la-sombra-del-viento.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlos-ruiz-zafon/la-sombra-del-viento/theres-no-such.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt that language made any sense at all.

[Patrick Süskind](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind.md) · [Perfume](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-suskind/perfume/all-these-grotesque.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [the senses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-senses.md)

> "I don't like Latin," said Miss Frettlby, shaking her pretty head. "I agree with Heine's remark, that if the Romans had had to learn it they would not have found time to conquer the world."

[Fergus Hume](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fergus-hume.md) · [The Mystery of a Hansom Cab](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fergus-hume/the-mystery-of-a-hansom-cab.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/fergus-hume/the-mystery-of-a-hansom-cab/i-dont-like.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.

[Frances Hodgson Burnett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett.md) · [A Little Princess](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/a-little-princess.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/a-little-princess/how-it-is-that.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [animals](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/animals.md)

> In order to be heard by the oppressing class, one must speak as a member of it. Not only the language, but the diction. The accusation of tyranny, however well-founded in fact, is dismissed unless it is delivered in the manner that power recognizes as powerful.

[James S. A. Corey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey.md) · [Nemesis Games](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/nemesis-games.md) · p. 223 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/nemesis-games/in-order-to-be-heard.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Sometimes when we make these distinctions, we’re really creating them more than describing anything that’s already there.

[James S. A. Corey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey.md) · [Nemesis Games](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/nemesis-games.md) · p. 488 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/nemesis-games/sometimes-when-we-make.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I make no conscious effort to be tough, or , or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices, and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.

[James M. Cain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-m-cain.md) · [Double Indemnity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-m-cain/double-indemnity.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-m-cain/double-indemnity/i-make-no-conscious.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I smiled and watched Charlie running away with the children , with his head down and his happy arms spinning like propellers, and I cried with joy when the children all began to play together in the sparkling foam of the waves that broke between worlds at the point. It was beautiful […] and that is a word I do not need to explain to you, because now we are all speaking the same language

[Chris Cleave](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave.md) · [The Other Hand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave/the-other-hand.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave/the-other-hand/i-smiled-and.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [joy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/joy.md)

> Learning the Queen’s English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had.”

[Chris Cleave](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave.md) · [The Other Hand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave/the-other-hand.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-cleave/the-other-hand/learning-the-queens.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Now I know that speaking good English is not the measure of intelligent mind and sharp brain. English is only a language, like Yoruba and Igbo and Hausa. Nothing about it is so special, nothing about it makes anybody have sense.

[Abi Dare](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abi-dare.md) · [The Girl with the Louding Voice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abi-dare/the-girl-with-the-louding-voice.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abi-dare/the-girl-with-the-louding-voice/now-i-know.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [intelligence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence.md)

> language is both an entryway and a dead end.

[Michael Bronski](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-bronski.md) · [A Queer History of the United States](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-bronski/a-queer-history-of-the-united-states.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-bronski/a-queer-history-of-the-united-states/language-is-both.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> When we lived in Cuba, I was smart. But when we got to Queens, in New York City, in the United States of America, I became dumb, just because I couldn't speak English. (first lines)

[Ruth Behar](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ruth-behar.md) · [Lucky Broken Girl](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ruth-behar/lucky-broken-girl.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ruth-behar/lucky-broken-girl/when-we-lived.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [emigration](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emigration.md)

> Because I didn't learn the language until I started school, I associated English with everything hard: the chalkboard with diagrammed sentences, the syllables in my mouth like hard slippery marbles. English was not an expression of me but a language that was out to get me, threaded with invisible trip wires that could expose me at the slightest misstep.

[Cathy Park Hong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong.md) · [Minor Feelings](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings/because-i-didnt.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> As a poet, I have always treated English as a weapon in a power struggle, wielding it against those who are more powerful than me. But I falter when using English as an expression of love.

[Cathy Park Hong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong.md) · [Minor Feelings](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings/as-a-poet.md)

Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md)

> Ever since I started writing poetry seriously, I have used English inappropriately.

[Cathy Park Hong](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong.md) · [Minor Feelings](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cathy-park-hong/minor-feelings/ever-since-i-started.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [poetry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry.md)

> When a language dies, so much more than words are lost. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 258 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/when-a-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> To be heard, you must speak the language of the one you want to listen.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 158 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/to-be-heard.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [listening](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/listening.md)

> To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/to-be-native.md)

Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The language reminds us, in every sentence, of our kinship with all of the animate world.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 56 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/the-language-reminds.md)

Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Water, land, and even a day, the language a mirror for seeing the animacy of the world, the life that pulses through all things, through pines and nuthatches and mushrooms. This is the language I hear in the woods; this is the language that lets us speak of what wells up all around us.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 55 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/water-land-and.md)

Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> You'd think that biologists, of all people, would have words for life. But in scientific language our terminology is used to define the boundaries of our knowing. What lies beyond our grasp remains unnamed.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 49 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/youd-think-that.md)

Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> A language teacher I know explained that grammar is just the way we chart relationships in language. Maybe it also reflects our relationships with each other.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/a-language-teacher.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.

[Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md) · [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md) · p. 58 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/we-americans-are.md)

Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> for I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life.

[Ngugi wa Thiong'o](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo.md) · [Wizard of the Crow](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo/wizard-of-the-crow.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo/wizard-of-the-crow/for-i-had.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Gatuĩria was at least aware that the slavery of language is the slavery of the mind and nothing to be proud of."

[Ngugi wa Thiong'o](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo.md) · [Devil on the Cross](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo/devil-on-the-cross.md) · p. 58 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ngugi-wa-thiongo/devil-on-the-cross/gatuiria-was-at-least.md)

Topics: [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I once read that the Devil studied Basque for seven years and only learned two words.

[L. Sprague deCamp](https://www.leafyquotes.com/l-sprague-decamp.md) · [The Purple Pterodactyls](https://www.leafyquotes.com/l-sprague-decamp/the-purple-pterodactyls.md) · p. 34 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/l-sprague-decamp/the-purple-pterodactyls/i-once-read.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> "Maybe one of the worst things that we can do is to diminish the possibility of the universe in our insistence on our description of it."

[Ben Okri](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri.md) · [The Age of Magic](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri/the-age-of-magic.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-okri/the-age-of-magic/maybe-one-of-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [the universe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe.md)

> Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms around the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.

[David Mitchell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell.md) · [Cloud Atlas](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas.md) · p. 168 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/sometimes-the-fluffy.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> They had learned to speak, and so had won their first great victory over Time. Now the knowledge of one generation could be handed on to the next. Unlike the animals, who knew only the present, Man had acquired a past; and he was beginning to grope toward a future.

[Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md) · [2001: A Space Odyssey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/2001-a-space-odyssey/they-had-learned.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> "How many men, do you suppose, realise the limitations of using words to convey our meanings? They may find that there are inconvenient misunderstandings, and blame language, but how many admit that the words are just a substitute for the thing they really lack—mental communication? Precious few. My point is that they do not realise the lack of direct mental communication, because they've never had it. They look on spoken or written language as a natural method of expression, whereas it is really a mechanical process [...]"

[John Wyndham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham.md) · [The Secret People](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-secret-people.md) · p. 65 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-secret-people/how-many-men.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> 'There's a whole lot of people don't seem to understand that you have to talk to a man in his own language before he'll take you seriously.'

[John Wyndham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham.md) · [The Day of the Triffids](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-day-of-the-triffids.md) · p. 162 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-day-of-the-triffids/theres-a-whole.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conversation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conversation.md)

> In the late 1930s a Polish count, Alfred Korzybski, pointed out yet another aspect of consciousness — language. Language molds thought, he said, laying out the principles of General Semantics. We confuse it with reality; it creates false certainties. With words we try to isolate things that can only exist in continuity. We fail to see process, change, movement. If we are to experience reality, Korzybski and his followers said, we must acknowledge the limits of language.

[Marilyn Ferguson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson.md) · [The Aquarian Conspiracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/in-the-late.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md)

> Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.

[Dan Simmons](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dan-simmons.md) · [Hyperion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dan-simmons/hyperion.md) · p. 191 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/dan-simmons/hyperion/words-bend-our.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [self-deception](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2.md)

> The basic agreement between human beings, indeed what makes them human and makes them social, is language. ("On the Social Contract" 1989)

[Monique Wittig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/monique-wittig.md) · [The Straight Mind](https://www.leafyquotes.com/monique-wittig/the-straight-mind.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/monique-wittig/the-straight-mind/the-basic-agreement.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Language death is like no other form of disappearance. When people die, they leave signs of their presence in the world, in the form of their dwelling places, burial mounds, and artefacts – in a word, their archaeology. But spoken language leaves no archaeology. When a language dies, which has never been recorded, it is as if it has never been.

[David Crystal](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal.md) · [How Language Works](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal/how-language-works.md) · p. 342 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal/how-language-works/language-death-is-like.md)

Topics: [memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> However language began, one thing is certain – it immediately began to change, and has been changing ever since. Languages are always in a state of flux. Change affects the way people speak as inevitably as it does any other area of human life. Language purists do not welcome it, but they can do very little about it. Language would stand still only if society did. A world of unchanging linguistic excellence, based on the brilliance of earlier literary forms, exists only in fantasy. The only languages that do not change are dead ones.

[David Crystal](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal.md) · [How Language Works](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal/how-language-works.md) · p. 357 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-crystal/how-language-works/however-language-began.md)

Topics: [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light.

[Elizabeth Kostova](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elizabeth-kostova.md) · [The Historian](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elizabeth-kostova/the-historian.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/elizabeth-kostova/the-historian/never-before-had.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Afterwards, when Clavain tried to imaging how he might describe it, he found that words were never going to be adequate for the task. And that was no surprise: evolution had shaped language to convey many concepts, but going from a single to a networked topology of self was not amongst them.

[Alastair Reynolds](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds.md) · [Galactic North](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/galactic-north.md) · p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/galactic-north/afterwards-when-clavain.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [evolution](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution.md)

> Silence is a prince's friend. Words are like arrows ... once loosed, you cannot call them back.

[George RR Martin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin.md) · [A Feast for Crows](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-feast-for-crows.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-feast-for-crows/silence-is-a-princes.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [silence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/silence.md)

> Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they represent.

[Evelyn Underhill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill.md) · [Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People and Abba: Meditations Based on the Lord's Prayer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill/practical-mysticism-a-little-book-for-normal-people-and-abba-meditations-based-on-the-lords-prayer.md) · p. 26 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/evelyn-underhill/practical-mysticism-a-little-book-for-normal-people-and-abba-meditations-based-on-the-lords-prayer/because-mystery-is-horrible.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [secrets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets.md)

> "The words still don't move."
>
> "The words don't need to move. It is you who is moved by them."

[Ian McDonald](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ian-mcdonald.md) · [River of Gods](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ian-mcdonald/river-of-gods.md) · p. 239 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ian-mcdonald/river-of-gods/the-words-still.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> A sign [has the] explicit intention to serve as an index of subjective meanings... Language is capable of becoming the objective repository of vast accumulations of meaning and experience, which it can then preserve in time and transmit to following generations... Language also typifies experiences, allowing me to subsume them under broad categories in terms of which they have meaning not only to myself but also to my fellowmen.

[Peter L. Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger.md) · [The Social Construction of Reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality.md) · p. 35 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger/the-social-construction-of-reality/a-sign-has.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Our theories stand. We both see clearly; we know what’s right. Even if it’s not always possible to act on it, don’t you think it matters to be able to call things by their true names?

[Ellen Kushner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner.md) · [The Privilege of the Sword](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner/the-privilege-of-the-sword.md) · p. 386 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner/the-privilege-of-the-sword/our-theories-stand.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> “In real life, my sweet poet,” the duke said as the swordsmen circled, “words can never be undone.”

[Ellen Kushner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner.md) · [The Privilege of the Sword](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner/the-privilege-of-the-sword.md) · p. 99 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ellen-kushner/the-privilege-of-the-sword/in-real-life.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Big professorial words are good to know but not necessarily use at every turn. Try not to serve vichyssois to a coal miner, and do not give Cheerios to the queen of England. Neither will be amused.

[Tom Heehler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler.md) · [The Well-Spoken Thesaurus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus/big-professorial-words.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> In country places a single word is inflected to mean a hundred things, so that only a recording of the sounds gives an idea of the speech of these people.

[Patrick Kavanagh](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-kavanagh.md) · [Tarry Flynn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-kavanagh/tarry-flynn.md) · p. 23 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-kavanagh/tarry-flynn/in-country-places.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Words are like little gods. The pronoun "him" instead of "her," if used often enough, can disuade a girl from science or math. The words you use determine the density of gray matter in your brain. They affect your political leanings, influence how you see reality, determine your level of confidence and thus, define what it means to be you. That's what words do.

[Tom Heehler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler.md) · [The Well-Spoken Thesaurus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus/words-are-like.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> As important as your words are in shaping your behavior, they are even more important in the way they shape the behavior of others. Your manner of speaking is, if nothing else, the central factor upon which people form assumptions about you. Whatever is your ultimate goal in life, chances are good you're going to have to talk your way to it. And if greatness is your goal, well-spoken words are essential. Think about it. From Homer to Hemingway, Lincoln, Churchill, King, and both Obamas - their words are why we know them.

[Tom Heehler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler.md) · [The Well-Spoken Thesaurus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-heehler/the-well-spoken-thesaurus/as-important-as-your.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> [J]argons that facilitate communication within the profession makes its communication with outsiders more difficult. ...[A]ll technical professions have an incentive to make themselves look more complicated... so they can justify the high fees... for their services.

[Ha-Joon Chang](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang.md) · [Economics: The User's Guide](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang/economics-the-users-guide.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang/economics-the-users-guide/j-argons-that-facilitate.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We are a people captivated by the power and romance of metaphor, forever seeking the invisible through the image of the visible.

[Lewis Lapham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lewis-lapham.md) · [Waiting for the Barbarians](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lewis-lapham/waiting-for-the-barbarians.md) · p. 88 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lewis-lapham/waiting-for-the-barbarians/we-are-a-people.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> "Liquidity" was one of those words Wall Street people threw around when they wanted the conversation to end, and for brains to go dead, and for all questioning to cease.

[Michael Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis.md) · [Flash Boys](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys.md) · p. 108 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-lewis/flash-boys/liquidity-was-one.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [manipulation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/manipulation.md)

> To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.

[Frantz Fanon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frantz-fanon.md) · [Black Skin, White Masks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frantz-fanon/black-skin-white-masks.md) · p. 38 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frantz-fanon/black-skin-white-masks/to-speak-a-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> Their minds were sudden merchants: metaphor, like money, equalised the incommensurable.

[China Miéville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville.md) · [Embassytown](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown.md) · p. 312 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown/their-minds-were.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Mr Premier, Sir. Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

[Aravind Adiga](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aravind-adiga.md) · [The White Tiger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aravind-adiga/the-white-tiger.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aravind-adiga/the-white-tiger/mr-premier-sir.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The point in all this is that language is a handy whipping boy to summon and belabor when we have failed in some serious way. In other words, we play politics with language, and in so doing conceal the reality and the complexity of our situation from ourselves and from those foolish enough to put their trust in us.

[Chinua Achebe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe.md) · [The Education of a British-Protected Child](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/the-education-of-a-british-protected-child.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/the-education-of-a-british-protected-child/the-point-in-all.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological.

[Ted Chiang](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang.md) · [Stories of Your Life and Others](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/stories-of-your-life-and-others.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/stories-of-your-life-and-others/the-universe-was.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [the universe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe.md)

> He’d had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.

[Cormac McCarthy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy.md) · [The Road](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/the-road.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/the-road/hed-had-this.md)

Topics: [memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> If now I…say "Stealing money is wrong," I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning — that is, expresses no proposition which can be either true or false. It is as if I had written "Stealing money!!" — where the shape and thickness of the exclamation marks show, by a suitable convention, that a special sort of moral disapproval is the feeling which is being expressed.

[A.J. Ayer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aj-ayer.md) · [Language, Truth and Logic](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aj-ayer/language-truth-and-logic.md) · p. 107 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aj-ayer/language-truth-and-logic/if-now-i-say.md)

Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Definitions, her grandmother once said, had to be like a fat man’s belt—big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.

[Gregory Benford](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford.md) · [The Sunborn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn.md) · p. 163 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn/definitions-her-grandmother.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> She had always admired the way bureaucracies spontaneously produced leaden prose, blandly sliding from the mouths of people who absolutely believed everything they said.

[Gregory Benford](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford.md) · [The Sunborn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn.md) · p. 128 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn/she-had-always.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [bureaucracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/bureaucracy.md)

> You had to form for yourself a lucid language for the world, to overcome the battering of experience, to replace everyday life’s pain and harshness and wretched dreariness with — no not with certainty but with an ignorance you could live with. Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.

[Gregory Benford](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford.md) · [Timescape](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape.md) · p. 360 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/you-had-to-form.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [ignorance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance.md)

> Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, it would perhaps break through the netting, continue on its course, never fall to earth, but go into orbit around the world.

[David Lodge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-lodge.md) · [Small World](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-lodge/small-world.md) · p. 141 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-lodge/small-world/language-is-the.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.
>
> But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.

[John Berger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger.md) · [Ways of Seeing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger/ways-of-seeing.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-berger/ways-of-seeing/seeing-comes-before.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture. (p249, "Motherhood and Daughterhood")

[Adrienne Rich](https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrienne-rich.md) · [Of Woman Born](https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrienne-rich/of-woman-born.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrienne-rich/of-woman-born/in-the-interstices.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> In French the truth of passion stood up coldly and cruelly to the scrutiny of human experience. In his own curious phrase he [Pursewarden] had always qualified it as 'an unsniggerable language'. (VIII)

[Lawrence Durrell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell.md) · [Mountolive](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive/in-french-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [passion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion.md)

> We don’t really know what a pleasure it is to run in our own language until we are forced to stumble in someone else’s.

[Gregory David Roberts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts.md) · [Shantaram](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-david-roberts/shantaram/we-dont-really.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The words of our childhood became strangers to us- we couldn't use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.

[Nicole Krauss](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicole-krauss.md) · [The History of Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicole-krauss/the-history-of-love.md) · p. 6 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicole-krauss/the-history-of-love/the-words-of-our.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [childhood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood.md)

> To a text-based life-form, unpredictable syntax and poor grammar is a source of huge discomfort. Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can’t walk to the bathroom. Poor syntax is even worse. Change word order and a sentence useless for anyone Yoda except you have.

[Jasper Fforde](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde.md) · [One of Our Thursdays Is Missing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/one-of-our-thursdays-is-missing.md) · p. 20 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/one-of-our-thursdays-is-missing/to-a-text-based.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.

[Bel Kaufman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bel-kaufman.md) · [Up the Down Staircase](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bel-kaufman/up-the-down-staircase.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/bel-kaufman/up-the-down-staircase/the-clerical-work.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [bureaucracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/bureaucracy.md)

> When I was a boy and refused to speak Spanish (because I spoke English), then could not speak Spanish from awkwardness, then guilt, Mexican relatives criticized my parents for letting me “lose it”—my culture, they said.

[Richard Rodriguez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez.md) · [Brown](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/brown.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/brown/when-i-was.md)

Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [emigration](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emigration.md)

> An Hispanic-American writer tells me, ‘I will never give up my family language; I would as soon give up my soul.’ Thus he holds to his chest a skein of words, as though it were the source of his family ties. He credits to language what he should credit to family members. A convenient mistake. For as long as he holds on to words, he can ignore how much else has changed in his life.

[Richard Rodriguez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez.md) · [Hunger of Memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory/an-hispanic-american-writer.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [family](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/family.md)

> But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation. They do not seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality. Supporters of bilingual education thus want it both ways. They propose bilingual schooling as a way of helping students acquire the skills of the classroom crucial for public success. But they likewise insist that bilingual instruction will give students a sense of their identity apart from the public. Behind this screen there gleams an astonishing promise: One can become a public person while still remaining a private person. At the very same time one can be both! There need be no tension between the self in the crowd and the self apart from the crowd! Who would not want to believe such an idea?

[Richard Rodriguez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez.md) · [Hunger of Memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory/but-the-bilingualists.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [individualism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/individualism.md), [emigration](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emigration.md)

> I grew up victim to a disabling confusion. As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with confidence.

[Richard Rodriguez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez.md) · [Hunger of Memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory/i-grew-up-victim.md)

Topics: [identity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great deal by not being taught in their family’s language. What they seem not to recognize is that, as a socially disadvantaged child, I considered Spanish to be a private language. What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right—and the obligation—to speak the public language of los gringos.

[Richard Rodriguez](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez.md) · [Hunger of Memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/hunger-of-memory/supporters-of-bilingual.md)

Topics: [education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [privacy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/privacy.md)

> A powerful enough metaphor grows its own truth.

[Matthew Stover](https://www.leafyquotes.com/matthew-stover.md) · [Blade of Tyshalle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/matthew-stover/blade-of-tyshalle.md) · p. 734 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/matthew-stover/blade-of-tyshalle/a-powerful-enough.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The arrival of language was like the invasion of a parasitic system. Co-opting those areas of the brain that were the least dedicated. The most susceptible to appropriation.

[Cormac McCarthy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy.md) · [Stella Maris](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/stella-maris.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/stella-maris/the-arrival-of-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The world has no name, he said. The names of the cerros and the sierras and the deserts exist only on maps. We name them so that we do not lose our way. Yet it was because the way was lost to us already that we have made those names. The world cannot be lost. We are the ones. And it is because these names and these coordinates are our own naming that they cannot save us. That they cannot find for us the way again.

[Cormac McCarthy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy.md) · [The Crossing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/the-crossing.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/cormac-mccarthy/the-crossing/the-world-has.md)

Topics: [nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through education, conversation, our contact with books, and yet, in comparison, there are only a tiny number about whose meaning, sense, and denotation we would have absolutely no doubts if, one day, we were to ask ourselves seriously what they meant. Thus we affirm and deny, thus we convince and are convinced, thus we argue, deduce, and conclude, wandering fearlessly over the surface of concepts about which we have only the vaguest of ideas, and, despite the false air of confidence that we generally affect as we feel our way along the road in the verbal darkness, we manage, more or less, to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.

[José Saramago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago.md) · [The Double](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-double.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-double/we-have-an-odd.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.

[José Saramago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago.md) · [The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-year-of-the-death-of-ricardo-reis.md) · p. 47 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-year-of-the-death-of-ricardo-reis/perhaps-it-is-the.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Each language encourages its speakers to tell certain things and to ignore other things.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/each-language-encourages.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Experiments... have shown that at least one aspect of human thought—memory—is strongly influenced by language.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/experiments-have-shown.md)

Topics: [memory](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/memory.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Wilhelm von Humboldt... stated that the structure of language expresses the inner life of its speakers: "Man lives with the world about him, principally, indeed exclusively, as language presents it."

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/wilhelm-von-humboldt.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Thinking is language spoken to oneself. Until language has made sense of an experience, that experience is meaningless.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/thinking-is-language.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> About 1932 one of Sapir's students at Yale, Benjamin Lee Whorf drew on Sapir's ideas and began an intensive study of the language of the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Whorf's brilliant analysis... seemed to support the view that man is a prisoner of his language. Whorf emphasized grammar—rather than vocabulary, which had previously intrigued scholars—as an indicator of the way a language can direct a speaker into certain habits of thought.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/about-1932-one.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The weakness of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis... the impossibility of generalizing about entire cultures and then attributing these generalizations to the language spoken ...is to leave numerous facts about culture unexplained. The great religions of the world... have flourished among diverse peoples who speak languages with sharply different grammars. ...Cultures as diverse as the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Ute hunting bands of the Great Basin spoke very closely related tongues.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/the-weakness-of-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> Freedom of speech does not exist anywhere, for every community on earth forbids the use of certain sounds, words, and sentences in various speech situations. ...the habitual liar faces social sanctions ...Speakers are not allowed to misrepresent... to defame other people in public, to maliciously shout "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, or to utter obscenities on the telephone.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/freedom-of-speech.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [freedom of speech](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom-of-speech.md)

> The colors that a speaker "sees" often depend very much on the language he speaks, because each language offers its own high-codability color terms.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/the-colors-that.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> This inseparableness of everything in the world from language has intrigued modern thinkers, most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein... If its limits—that is, the precise point at which sense becomes nonsense—could somehow be defined, then speakers would not attempt to express the inexpressible. Therefore, said Wittgenstein, do not put too great a burden upon language. Learn its limitations and try to accommodate yourself to them, for language offers all the reality you can ever hope to know.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/this-inseparableness-of-everything.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md)

> Whorf asked... Do the Hopi and European cultures... conceptualize reality in different ways? And his answer was that they do. Whereas European cultures are organized in terms of space and time, the Hopi culture, Whorf believed, emphasizes events. To speakers of European languages, time is a commodity that occurs between fixed points and can be measured. Time is said to be wasted or saved... their economic systems emphasize wages paid for the amount of time worked, rent for the time a dwelling is occupied, interest for the time money is loaned. Hopi culture... instead thinks... The span of time the growing takes is not the important thing, but rather the way in which the event of growth follows the event of planting. The Hopi is concerned that the sequence of events in the construction of a building be in the correct order, not that it takes a certain amount of time to complete the job.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/whorf-asked-do-the.md)

Topics: [time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> For tens, and perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years, people regarded language as a holy instrument that let them look out upon the world... Only in the last few decades have people suspected that their window on the world has a glass that gives a distorted view.

[Peter Farb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb.md) · [Word Play](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-farb/word-play/for-tens-and.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> If you call a thing by a name that doesn't seem so repellent, then the thing itself also becomes less repellent. Sympathetic magic—except it wasn't sympathetic to those who fell victim to it.

[Harry Turtledove](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove.md) · [Settling Accounts: Return Engagement](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-return-engagement.md) · p. 276 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-return-engagement/if-you-call.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [manipulation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/manipulation.md)

> “So you’re one of the ones who still say ‘if there be,’ are you, Three-Card? I know the fancy grammarians like it better, but ‘if there are’ has always been good enough for me.”
>
> “I’m an old man.” Jesperson ran a pudgy finger along the gray walrus mustache he wore. “The things the modern generation does to the English language are a shame and a disgrace, nothing less.”

[Harry Turtledove](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove.md) · [How Few Remain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/how-few-remain.md) · p. 188 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/how-few-remain/so-youre-one.md)

Topics: [old age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist -- all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.

[Neil Postman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman.md) · [Amusing Ourselves to Death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death.md) · p. 12 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death/writing-freezes-speech.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> There is no such thing in nature as “man” or “tree.” The universe offers no such categories or simplifications; only flux and infinite variety. The photograph documents and celebrates the particularities of this infinite variety. Language makes them comprehensible.

[Neil Postman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman.md) · [Amusing Ourselves to Death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death.md) · p. 72 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death/there-is-no-such.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [Photography](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/photography.md)

> For even the simplest act of naming a thing is an act of thinking—of comparing one thing with others, selecting certain features in common, ignoring what is different, and making an imaginary category.

[Neil Postman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman.md) · [Amusing Ourselves to Death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death.md) · p. 72 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/amusing-ourselves-to-death/for-even-the.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable.

[Neil Postman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman.md) · [The Disappearance of Childhood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/the-disappearance-of-childhood.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-postman/the-disappearance-of-childhood/childhood-is-analogous.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [childhood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood.md), [culture](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture.md)

> Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.

[Thucydides](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides.md) · [History of the Peloponnesian War](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thucydides/history-of-the-peloponnesian-war/words-had-to-change.md)

Topics: [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda.md)

> Although he devoted hours of each day to his new discipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human society has created language in order that we may communicate our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to each other.' His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

[J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md) · [Disgrace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/disgrace.md) · p. 3 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/disgrace/although-he-devoted.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [music](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/music.md), [soul](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/soul.md)

> I tell myself I talked to Friday to educate him out of darkness and silence. But is that the truth? There are times when benevolence deserts me and I use words only as the shortest way to subject him to my will.

[J. M. Coetzee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee.md) · [Foe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/j-m-coetzee/foe/i-tell-myself.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [manipulation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/manipulation.md)

> Along the way, all meaning was lost except for verbal signals, the kind of signals any animal species develops in order to stay in touch with its own kind, call others to a feeding spot, or alert others to danger. Every linguist should know that language must be used to be retained, and the compilers of this report have warned that human language on Earth is also being reduced. As humans become more crowded, they become less tolerant of variety. To fit into a crowd, people must be similar, and Earth’s population today is a vat of homogeneity with only a pretense of choice remaining. One may pick model x with one curlicue or model y with three, the tasteless brown cracker or the tasteless yellow cracker, the actual difference in either case being nil. Any real choice among things of unlike value might lead to disparity, which leads to conflict. Ideas also contribute to disparity, and therefore in crowded populations ideas must be restricted to the least controversial, the least interesting. Children all receive the same grades in school. Workers all receive the same pay. Clothing is similar; Foods are identical; and with the passage of all distinctions the words for them also pass.

[Sheri S. Tepper](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper.md) · [The Margarets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets.md) · p. 151 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets/along-the-way.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conformity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conformity.md), [crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crowd.md)

> The chief trouble with the official style is that it spreads far beyond the formal contexts to which it is suited. Most civil servants, having learned to write in this way, cannot throw off the habit. The obscurity of their public announcements largely accounts for the disrepute into which Departmental activities have fallen: for the public naturally supposes that Departments are as muddled and stodgy as their announcements.
>
> The habit of obscurity is partly caused by a settled disinclination among public servants to give a definite refusal even where assent is out of the question; or to convey a vigorous rebuke even where, in private correspondence, any person with self-respect would feel bound to do so. The mood is conveyed by a polite and emasculated style — polite because, when writing to a member of the public, the public servant is, in theory at least, addressing one of his collective employers; emasculated because, as a cog in the Government machine, he must make his phrases look as mechanical as possible by stripping them of all personal feeling and opinion.

[Robert Graves](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves.md) · [The Reader Over Your Shoulder](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/the-reader-over-your-shoulder.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-graves/the-reader-over-your-shoulder/the-chief-trouble.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [bureaucracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/bureaucracy.md)

> Even if the room they rented was smaller than the heifer’s stall and darker than a morning privy, they stayed to look at their number, hear themselves in an audience, feel themselves moving down the street among hundreds of others who moved the way they did, and who, when they spoke, regardless of the accent, treated language like the same intricate, malleable toy designed for their play.

[Toni Morrison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison.md) · [Jazz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/jazz.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/jazz/even-if-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [cities](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/cities.md)

> Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers — not the defined.

[Toni Morrison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison.md) · [Beloved](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/toni-morrison/beloved/clever-but-schoolteacher.md)

Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> On the poor use of grammar It's a matter of usage. If a house is off-plumb and rickety and lets in the wind, you blame the mason, not the bricks. Our words are up to the job. It's our syntax that's limiting.

[Tom Robbins](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins.md) · [Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/fierce-invalids-home-from-hot-climates.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/tom-robbins/fierce-invalids-home-from-hot-climates/on-the-poor.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> "How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words."

[David Foster Wallace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace.md) · [The Pale King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-foster-wallace/the-pale-king/how-odd-i-can.md)

Topics: [loneliness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> There is no imagination in fetishlike sexual conformity; and no ques­tions are being asked in political discourse on sex about hope and sorrow, intimacy and anguish, communion and loss. Imagination is both aggressive and delicate, a mode of cogni­tion unmatched in its ability to reveal the hidden meanings in reality now and the likely shape of tomorrow. Imagination is not a synonym for sexual fantasy, which is only—patheti­cally—a programmed tape loop repeating repeating in the narcoleptic mind. Imagination finds new meanings, new forms; complex and empathetic values and acts. The person with imagination is pushed forward by it into a world of possi­bility and risk, a distinct world of meaning and choice; not into a nearly bare junkyard of symbols manipulated to evoke rote responses. The paring down of the vocabulary of human affect to fuck-related expletives suggests that one destroys the com­plexity of human response by destroying the language that communicates its existence.

[Andrea Dworkin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin.md) · [Intercourse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin/intercourse.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/andrea-dworkin/intercourse/there-is-no-imagination.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [imagination](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination.md)

> The real issue is not whether two and two make four or whether two and two make five, but whether life advances by men who love words or men who love living.

[Colin Wilson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson.md) · [The Outsider](https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-outsider.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-outsider/the-real-issue.md)

Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The medium here is not the message, quite the opposite: the very medium that we use—the universal intersubjectivity of language—undermines the message.

[Slavoj Žižek](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek.md) · [Less Than Nothing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/less-than-nothing.md) · p. 25 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/less-than-nothing/the-medium-here.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

[Robert Burton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-burton.md) · [The Anatomy of Melancholy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-burton/the-anatomy-of-melancholy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-burton/the-anatomy-of-melancholy/a-blow-with.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [violence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/violence.md)

> Loonies speak their own language, like educated people.

[Patrick White](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-white.md) · [The Tree of Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-white/the-tree-of-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-white/the-tree-of-man/loonies-speak-their.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [madness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness.md)

> It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

[Thomas Hardy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy.md) · [Far From The Madding Crowd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/far-from-the-madding-crowd.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hardy/far-from-the-madding-crowd/it-is-difficult.md)

Topics: [women](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another—language was just there to hide their thoughts. (p. 319)

[Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md) · [Reaper Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man/there-was-never.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Going Up in the World is a metaphor, which I am learning about, it is like Lying but more decorative. (p. 153)

[Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md) · [Guards! Guards!](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/going-up-in-the.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [lies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication. (p. 146)

[Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md) · [Guards! Guards!](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/the-reason-that.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The English language was created by poets, a five-hundred year enterprise of emotion and metaphor, the richest dialogue in world literature. French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisian intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.

[Camille Paglia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia.md) · [Sexual Personae](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae.md) · p. 34 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/the-english-language.md)

Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Part of the unknown reality, then, is hidden beneath language and the enforced pattern of accustomed words-so, for an exercise, look about your environment. Make up new, different 'words' for the objects that you see about you. Pick up any object, for example. Hold it for a few seconds, feel its texture, look at its color, and spontaneously give it a new name by uttering the sounds that come into your mind. See how the sounds bring out certain aspects of the object that you may not have noticed before. The new word will fit as much as the old one did. It may, in fact, fit better. Do this with many objects, following the same procedure. You can instead say the name of any object backwards. In such ways you break up to some extent the automatic patterning of familiar phrases, so that you can perceive the individuality that is within each object.

[Jane Roberts](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-roberts.md) · [The Unknown Reality, Volume Two](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-roberts/the-unknown-reality-volume-two.md) · p. 460 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-roberts/the-unknown-reality-volume-two/part-of-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

[Wallace Stevens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wallace-stevens.md) · [Opus Posthumous](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wallace-stevens/opus-posthumous.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wallace-stevens/opus-posthumous/in-the-world.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [imagination](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination.md)

> Names are not important... To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like, this thing you have seen?' So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, 'It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.' Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it 'fire.'
>
> "If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. 'As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, 'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. The thing that has never happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning blossom squats, flowing, upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and this is reality — the Nameless.

[Roger Zelazny](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny.md) · [Lord of Light](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light/names-are-not.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md)

> Redefine the terms by which Man views the world, and thus eventually you redefine the world itself.

[Michael Moorcock](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock.md) · [The City in the Autumn Stars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-city-in-the-autumn-stars.md) · p. 367 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-city-in-the-autumn-stars/redefine-the-terms.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md)

> We were equally tired, in mid-century, of cold sanity and hot blasphemy; of the over-cerebral and of the over-faecal; the way out lay somewhere else. Words had lost their power, either for good or for evil; still hung, like a mist, over the reality of action, distorting, misleading, castrating; but at least since Hitler and Hiroshima they were seen to be a mist, a flimsy superstructure.

[John Fowles](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles.md) · [Daniel Martin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin/we-were-equally.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> When I was first aware that I had been laid low by the disease, I felt a need, among other things, to register a strong protest against the word “depression.” Depression, most people know, used to be termed “melancholia,” a word which appears in English as early as the year 1303 and crops up more than once in Chaucer, who in his usage seemed to be aware of its pathological nuances. “Melancholia” would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness. It may be that the scientist generally held responsible for its currency in modern times, a Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty member justly venerated — the Swiss-born psychiatrist Adolf Meyer — had a tin ear for the finer rhythms of English and therefore was unaware of the semantic damage he had inflicted by offering “depression” as a descriptive noun for such a dreadful and raging disease. Nonetheless, for over seventy-five years the word has slithered innocuously through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing, by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease when out of control.
>
> As one who has suffered from the malady in extremis yet returned to tell the tale, I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. “Brainstorm,” for instance, has unfortunately been preempted to describe, somewhat jocularly, intellectual inspiration. But something along these lines is needed. Told that someone’s mood disorder has evolved into a storm — a veritable howling tempest in the brain, which is indeed what a clinical depression resembles like nothing else — even the uninformed layman might display sympathy rather than the standard reaction that “depression” evokes, something akin to “So what?” or “You’ll pull out of it” or “We all have bad days.” The phrase “nervous breakdown” seems to be on its way out, certainly deservedly so, owing to its insinuation of a vague spinelessness, but we still seem destined to be saddled with “depression” until a better, sturdier name is created.

[William Styron](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron.md) · [Darkness Visible](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-styron/darkness-visible/when-i-was-first.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [depression](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/depression.md)

> I found I could not say what it was I understood; that it was in fact on the level of meaning above language, a level we like to believe scarcely exists, though if it were not for the constant discipline we have learned to exercise upon our thoughts, they would always be climbing to it unaware.

[Gene Wolfe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe.md) · [The Sword of the Lictor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-sword-of-the-lictor.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-sword-of-the-lictor/i-found-i-could.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them.

[Gene Wolfe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe.md) · [The Shadow of the Torturer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-shadow-of-the-torturer.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-shadow-of-the-torturer/certain-mystes-aver.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [reality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality.md)

> By the use of the language of sorrow I had for the time being obliterated my sorrow—so powerful is the charm of words, which for us reduces to manageable entities all the passions that would otherwise madden and destroy us.

[Gene Wolfe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe.md) · [The Shadow of the Torturer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-shadow-of-the-torturer.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-shadow-of-the-torturer/by-the-use.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [sadness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sadness.md)

> Young writers take that most communal object, language, and perform on it that most individual act, creation.

[Samuel R. Delany](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany.md) · [Neveryona](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/neveryona.md) · p. 447 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/samuel-r-delany/neveryona/young-writers-take.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.

[Werner Heisenberg](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg.md) · [Physics and Philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/the-physicist-may.md)

Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Any concepts or words which have been formed in the past through the interplay between the world and ourselves are not really sharply defined with respect to their meaning: that is to say, we do not know exactly how far they will help us in finding our way in the world. We often know that they can be applied to a wide range of inner or outer experience, but we practically never know precisely the limits of their applicability. This is true even of the simplest and most general concepts like "existence" and "space and time". Therefore, it will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
>
> The concepts may, however, be sharply defined with regard to their connections. This is actually the fact when the concepts become part of a system of axioms and definitions which can be expressed consistently by a mathematical scheme. Such a group of connected concepts may be applicable to a wide field of experience and will help us to find our way in this field. But the limits of the applicability will in general not be known, at least not completely.

[Werner Heisenberg](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg.md) · [Physics and Philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/any-concepts-or-words.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Sir Timothy was a fluent speaker, and when there was nothing to be said was possessed of a great plenty of words. And he was gifted with that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in every encounter, — a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is in truth the readiness which comes from continual practice. You shall meet two men of whom you shall know the one to be endowed with the brilliancy of true genius, and the other to be possessed of but moderate parts, and shall find the former never able to hold his own against the latter. In a debate, the man of moderate parts will seem to be greater than the man of genius. But this skill of tongue, this glibness of speech is hardly an affair of intellect at all. It is, — as is style to the writer, — not the wares which he has to take to market, but the vehicle in which they may be carried. Of what avail to you is it to have filled granaries with corn if you cannot get your corn to the consumer? Now Sir Timothy was a great vehicle, but he had not in truth much corn to send.

[Anthony Trollope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-trollope.md) · [The Duke's Children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-trollope/the-dukes-children.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-trollope/the-dukes-children/sir-timothy-was.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [intelligence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence.md)

> You live with words a long time. Then all at once you are old, and there are the things and the words don't matter

[Robert Penn Warren](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren.md) · [All the King's Men](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-penn-warren/all-the-kings-men/you-live-with.md)

Topics: [old age](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/old-age.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I speak to everyone in the language they understand. That isn’t being slick. It’s being clear.

[Orson Scott Card](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card.md) · [Speaker for the Dead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead/i-speak-to-everyone.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conversation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conversation.md)

> Finally, speech and truth exclude one another. And in fact this is just what brings up, in the age of fixed language, the typical "judge of men," who is all race and knows how to take the being that is speaking. To look a man keenly in the eyes, to size up the speaker behind the stump speech or the philosophical discourse, to know behind the prayer the heart, and behind the common good-tone the more intimate levels of social importance—and that instantaneously, immediately, and with the self-evident certainty that characterizes everything cosmic—that is what is lacking to the real Taboo-man, for whom one language at any rate carries conviction. A priest who is also a diplomat cannot be genuinely a priest. An ethical philosopher of the Kant stamp is never a "judge of men."
>
> The man who lies in his verbal utterances betrays himself, without observing it, in his demeanour. One who uses demeanour to dissimulate with betrays himself in his tone. It is precisely because rigid speech separates means and intent that it never carries it off with the keen appraiser. The adept reads between the lines and understands a man as soon as he sees his walk or his handwriting. The deeper and more intimate a spiritual communion, the more readily it dispenses with signs and linkages through waking-consciousness. A real comradeship makes itself understood with few words, a real faith is silent altogether. The purest symbol of an understanding that has again got beyond language is the old peasant couple sitting in the evening in front of their cottage and entertaining one another without a word's being passed, each knowing what the other is thinking and feeling. Words would only disturb the harmony. From such a state of reciprocal understanding something or other reaches back, far beyond the collective existence of the higher animal-world, deep in the primeval history of free-moving life. Here deliverance from the waking-consciousness is, at moments, very nearly achieved.

[Oswald Spengler](https://www.leafyquotes.com/oswald-spengler.md) · [The Decline of the West](https://www.leafyquotes.com/oswald-spengler/the-decline-of-the-west.md) · p. 137 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/oswald-spengler/the-decline-of-the-west/finally-speech-and.md)

Topics: [lies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies.md), [friendship](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/friendship.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The closed language does not demonstrate and explain—it communicates decision, dictum, command. Where it defines, the definition becomes “separation of good from evil;” it establishes unquestionable

[Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 101 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-closed-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda.md)

> This language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for concepts. It denies or absorbs the transcendent vocabulary; it does not search for but establishes and imposes truth and falsehood.

[Herbert Marcuse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse.md) · [One-Dimensional Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man.md) · p. 103 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/this-language-controls.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [propaganda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/propaganda.md)

> Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

[Robert Fulghum](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum.md) · [All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-fulghum/all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten/yelling-at-living.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word

[Nikolai Gogol](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol.md) · [Dead Souls](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol/dead-souls.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol/dead-souls/there-is-no-word.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [Russia](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/russia.md)

> They insist that an author should write in the strictest, purest and noblest language: in short, they expect the Russian language to drop from the clouds, already refined, and that it should come naturally to the lips, so that all they have to do is to open their mouth and stick out their tongue. It goes without saying, of course, that the feminine half of the human species is very wise; but it must be confessed that our respected readers are even wiser.

[Nikolai Gogol](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol.md) · [Dead Souls](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol/dead-souls.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nikolai-gogol/dead-souls/they-insist-that.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [irony](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony.md)

> Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it, hotheadedness isn't.

[Harper Lee](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harper-lee.md) · [To Kill a Mockingbird](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harper-lee/to-kill-a-mockingbird.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harper-lee/to-kill-a-mockingbird/bad-language-is-a-stage.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Glenn used to say the reason you can’t really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, “I’ll be dead,” you’ve said the word I, and so you’re still alive inside the sentence. And that’s how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul — it was a consequence of grammar.

[Margaret Atwood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood.md) · [The Year of the Flood](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/margaret-atwood/the-year-of-the-flood/glenn-used-to-say.md)

Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [immortality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/immortality.md)

> Language... was just our way to explain away the wonder and the glory of the world.

[Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Choke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/choke.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/choke/language-was-just.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for its use, but people won't necessarily follow them.

[Haruki Murakami](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami.md) · [The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/the-wind-up-bird-chronicle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/haruki-murakami/the-wind-up-bird-chronicle/grammar-is-like.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Between thought and spoken word is a gap where intention can enter, the symbol twisted aside, and the lie come to be.

[Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md) · [City Of Illusions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/city-of-illusions.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/city-of-illusions/between-thought-and.md)

Topics: [lies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Many feminists have been grieved or aggrieved by The Left Hand of Darkness because the androgynes in it are called ‘he’ throughout. In the third person singular, the English generic pronoun is the same as the masculine pronoun. A fact worth reflecting upon. And it’s a trap, with no way out, because the exclusion of the feminine (she) and the neuter (it) from the generic/masculine (he) makes the use of either of them more specific, more unjust, as it were, than the use of ‘he.’ And I find made-up pronouns, ‘te’ and ‘heshe’ and so on, dreary and annoying.

[Ursula K. Le Guin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin.md) · [The Wind’s Twelve Quarters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-winds-twelve-quarters.md) · p. 85 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-winds-twelve-quarters/many-feminists-have.md)

Topics: [women](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Contemporary slang reflects this animal state: children are "mice," "rabbits," "kittens," women are called "chicks," (in England( "birds," "hens," "dumb clucks," "silly geese," "old mares," "bitches." Similar terminology is used about males as a defamation of character, or more broadly only about pressed males males: stud, wold, cat, stag, jack - and then it is used much more rarely, and often with a specifically sexual connotation.

[Shulamith Firestone](https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone.md) · [The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution](https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone/the-dialectic-of-sex-the-case-for-feminist-revolution.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone/the-dialectic-of-sex-the-case-for-feminist-revolution/contemporary-slang-reflects.md)

Topics: [women](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [feminism](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/feminism.md)

> 'For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?'
>
> 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.'
>
> 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp, 'that is precisely the point. That's their value — their ability to adapt -'
>
> 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they see how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse.'

[Steven Erikson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson.md) · [Reaper's Gale](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/reapers-gale.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-erikson/reapers-gale/for-hoods-sake.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [manipulation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/manipulation.md)

> "I'm afraid I can't comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-Causal Meteorological Phenomenon."
>
> "Can you tell us what that means?"
>
> "I'm not altogether sure. Let's be straight here. If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don't and I'm afraid we couldn't have that."

[Douglas Adams](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams.md) · [So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/im-afraid-i-cant.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Eskimos had over two hundred different words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your neighbor's boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night, snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow that despite all your efforts to train them, the huskies have pissed on.

[Douglas Adams](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams.md) · [So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/eskimos-had-over.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The ability to speak exactly is intimately related to the ability to know exactly.

[Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [The Way of Ignorance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/the-way-of-ignorance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/the-way-of-ignorance/the-ability-to-speak.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We are alive within mystery, by miracle. "Life," wrote Erwin Chargaff, "is the continual intervention of the inexplicable." We have more than we can know. We know more than we can say. The constructions of language (which is to say the constructions of thought) are formed within experience, not the other way around. Finally we live beyond words, as also we live beyond computation and beyond theory. There is no reason whatever to assume that the languages of science are less limited than other languages.

[Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [Life Is a Miracle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle/we-are-alive.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [secrets](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets.md)

> We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.

[Wendell Berry](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry.md) · [Life Is a Miracle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle/we-know-enough.md)

Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I must say I'm not very fond of oratory that's so full of energy it hasn't any room for facts. ~ Martin, Ch. 22

[Sinclair Lewis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis.md) · [Arrowsmith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith/i-must-say.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The paucity of its vocabulary and syntax is for the Beats essentially expressive of withdrawal from the standard civilization and its learning. On the other hand this paucity gives, instead of opportunities for thought and problem solving, considerable satisfaction in the act and energy of speaking itself, as is true of any simple adopted language, such as pig Latin. But this can have disadvantages. One learns to one’s frustration that they regard talk as an end in itself, as a means of self-expression, without subject matter. In a Beat group it is bad form to assert or deny a proposition as true or false, probable or improbable, or to want to explore its meaning.

[Paul Goodman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman.md) · [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) · p. 175 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/the-paucity-of-its.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conversation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conversation.md)

> Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying and the reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon, ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers. Sometimes these books are even worse: they are just hollow shells. The author himself no longer knows just what he is thinking and soothes himself with obscure ideas which would not satisfy him if expressed in plain speech.

[Carl von Clausewitz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz.md) · [On War](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz/on-war.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz/on-war/thus-it-has.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless, in the dark of the mind, in the world of emotion, by primordial intuition, terror. Speech is a social chart of this bog. (p. 48)

[Marshall McLuhan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan.md) · [The Medium is the Massage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/the-medium-is-the-massage.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/the-medium-is-the-massage/until-writing-was.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body. It enables them to move from thing to thing with greater ease and speed and ever less involvement. (p. 113)

[Marshall McLuhan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan.md) · [Understanding Media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/language-does-for.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [intelligence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence.md)

> Today, computers hold out the promise of a means of instant translation of any code or language into any other code or language. (p. 80)

[Marshall McLuhan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan.md) · [Understanding Media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/today-computers-hold.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [technology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology.md)

> Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/words-like-glass.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Abuse of words, foundation of ideology.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/abuse-of-words.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> All ways of expressing ourselves are good if they make us understood. Thus, if the clarity of our thoughts comes through better in a play of words, then the wordplay is good.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/all-ways-of-expressing.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> What we say is similar to what we are.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/what-we-say.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md)

> An oratorical style often has the same drawbacks as those operas in which the music prevents you from hearing the words. Here the words prevent you from seeing the thoughts.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/an-oratorical-style.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> All things that are easy to say have already been perfectly said.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/all-things-that.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> All beautiful words are susceptible to more than one meaning (or signification).

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/all-beautiful-words.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The child speaks words with his memory long before he speaks them with his tongue.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/the-child-speaks.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Once we have tasted the juice of words, our mind can no longer pass them by. We drink thought from them.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/once-we-have.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Because they know all the words, they think they know all the truths.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/because-they-know.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Ideas never lack for words. It is words that lack ideas. As soon as the idea has come to its last degree of perfection, the word blossoms; or, if you like, it blossoms from the word that presents it and clothes it.

[Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert.md) · [The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/ideas-never-lack.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The idea that thought is the same thing as language is an example of what can be called a conventional absurdity: a statement that goes against all common sense but that everyone believes because they dimly recall having heard it somewhere and because it is so pregnant with implications.

[Steven Pinker](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker.md) · [The Language Instinct](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-language-instinct.md) · p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-language-instinct/the-idea-that.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-tzu's dictum: Those who know do not say; Those who say do not know.
>
> When the master entered, they asked him what the words meant.
>
> Said the master, "Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?"
>
> All of them indicated that they knew.
>
> Then he said, "put it into words."
>
> All of them were silent.

[Anthony De Mello](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello.md) · [One Minute Wisdom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/one-minute-wisdom.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/one-minute-wisdom/the-disciples-were.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description.

[Anthony De Mello](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello.md) · [One Minute Wisdom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/one-minute-wisdom.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anthony-de-mello/one-minute-wisdom/every-word-every.md)

Topics: [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The way language came to children was incredible. They were all geniuses at that age, it took adults years and years to twist them down into the bonsai creatures they eventually became. Whou would dare to do that, who would dare deform this natural child? No one; and yet it got done. No one did it and everyone did it.

[Kim Stanley Robinson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson.md) · [Blue Mars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars.md) · p. 757 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/the-way-language.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [upbringing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing.md)

> It was a world of acts, and words had no more influence on acts than the sound of a waterfall has on the flow of the stream.

[Kim Stanley Robinson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson.md) · [Red Mars](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars.md) · p. 461 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars/it-was-a-world.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [taking action](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/taking-action.md)

> Funny how languages break down and turn into something else. Latin was rubbed away until it degenerated into dreadful lingos like French and Spanish and Italian, and lo! people found out that quite new things could be said in these degenerate tongues — things nobody had ever thought of in Latin. English is breaking down now in the same way — becoming a world language that every Tom, Dick and Harry must learn, and speak in a way that would give Doctor Johnson the jim-jams.

[Robertson Davies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies.md) · [The Cornish Trilogy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-cornish-trilogy.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robertson-davies/the-cornish-trilogy/funny-how-languages.md)

Topics: [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

[Joseph Conrad](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad.md) · [Under Western Eyes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/under-western-eyes.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-conrad/under-western-eyes/words-as-is-well.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We came back to the chairs now and then and sang hesitant, clever, nervous, gentle dithyrambs about how we were beginning to feel towards one another. Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them — at least I didn't; to phrase them was to invent them and own them. We whipped our strangeness and newness into a froth that resembled love, and we dared not play too long with it, talk too much of it, or it would flatten and fizzle away. So we moved back and forth from chairs to water, from talk to silence, and considering my unshakable edginess with Brenda, and the high walls of ego that rose, buttresses and all, between her and her knowledge of herself, we managed pretty well.

[Philip Roth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth.md) · [Goodbye, Columbus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/goodbye-columbus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/goodbye-columbus/we-came-back.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [falling in love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/falling-in-love.md)

> My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn’t just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you’ve got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren’t only bombs and bullets — no, they’re little gifts, containing meanings!

[Philip Roth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth.md) · [Portnoy's Complaint](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/portnoys-complaint.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-roth/portnoys-complaint/my-god-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [conversation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/conversation.md)

> Latin is majestic, especially when you don’t understand it.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Time Enough For Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love.md) · p. 196 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/latin-is-majestic.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> In the first place, very little thinking was ever done in English; it is not a language suited to logical thought. Instead, it’s an emotive lingo beautifully adapted to concealing fallacies. A rationalizing language, not a rational one.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Time Enough For Love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love.md) · p. 120 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/in-the-first.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.

[John Kenneth Galbraith](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith.md) · [The Affluent Society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-affluent-society.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-kenneth-galbraith/the-affluent-society/even-the-word.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

[P.G. Wodehouse](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pg-wodehouse.md) · [The Code of the Woosters](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pg-wodehouse/the-code-of-the-woosters.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pg-wodehouse/the-code-of-the-woosters/i-could-see.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The disquieting thing about newscaster-babble or editorial-speak is its ready availability as a serf idiom, a vernacular of deference. "Mr. Secretary, are we any nearer to bringing about a dialogue in this process?"

[Christopher Hitchens](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens.md) · [For the Sake of Argument](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/for-the-sake-of-argument.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/for-the-sake-of-argument/the-disquieting-thing.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media.md)

> Speaking our language, you will understand us—and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.

[Jack Vance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance.md) · [The Languages of Pao](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-languages-of-pao.md) · p. 64 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-vance/the-languages-of-pao/speaking-our-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [empathy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy.md)

> "Understanding being nothing else, but conception caused by Speech."

[Thomas Hobbes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes.md) · [Leviathan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan.md) · p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/understanding-being-nothing.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The best way to learn a language may be an episode of jail in a foreign country.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [Antifragile](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile.md) · p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/the-best-way.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Half of life—the interesting half of life—we don't even have a name for.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb.md) · [Antifragile](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile.md) · p. 33 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/half-of-life-the.md)

Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Of all the mind tools we acquire in the course of furnishing our brains from the stockpiles of culture, none are more important, of course, than words — first spoken, then written. Words make us more intelligent by making cognition easier, in the same way (many times multiplied) that beacons and landmarks make navigation in the world easier for simple creatures. Navigation in the abstract multidimensional world of ideas is simply impossible without a huge stock of movable, memorable landmarks that can be shared, criticized, recorded, and looked at from different perspectives.

[Daniel Dennett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett.md) · [Kinds Of Minds](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/kinds-of-minds.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/kinds-of-minds/of-all-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> “You speak metaphorically, I hope,” said Peggy.
>
> “I hope not,” said Becca. “Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

[Orson Scott Card](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card.md) · [Alvin Journeyman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/alvin-journeyman.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/alvin-journeyman/you-speak-metaphorically.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas ... the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification ... has its cause more in the ideas they stand for than in any incapacity there is in one sound more than another to signify any idea.

[John Locke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke.md) · [An Essay Concerning Human Understanding](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding/since-sounds-have.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

[John Locke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke.md) · [An Essay Concerning Human Understanding](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding/he-that-uses.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.

[John Locke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke.md) · [An Essay Concerning Human Understanding](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-locke/an-essay-concerning-human-understanding/the-boundaries-of-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md)

> The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech — it is a gift from heart to heart.

[Willa Cather](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather.md) · [Not Under Forty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/not-under-forty.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/not-under-forty/the-sayings-of-a-community.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> People in France have a phrase: "Spirit of the Stairway." In French: esprit d'Escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer but it's too late. So you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So, under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party...As you start down the stairway, then - magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put down. That's the Spirit of the Stairway. The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.

[Chuck Palahniuk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk.md) · [Haunted](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/haunted.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chuck-palahniuk/haunted/people-in-france.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

[Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md) · [The Romantic Manifesto](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-romantic-manifesto.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-romantic-manifesto/definitions-are-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [reason](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason.md)

> The rhetoric of hate is often most effective when couched in the idiom of love.

[Gore Vidal](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal.md) · [Julian](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/julian.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/julian/the-rhetoric-of-hate.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [hatred](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hatred.md)

> We may enjoy our room in the tower, with the painted walls and the commodious bookcases, but down in the garden there is a man digging who buried his father this morning, and it is he and his like who live the real life and speak the real language.

[Virginia Woolf](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf.md) · [The Common Reader: Volume 1](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1/we-may-enjoy.md)

Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Theirs, too, is the word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.

[Virginia Woolf](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf.md) · [The Common Reader: Volume 1](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/virginia-woolf/the-common-reader-volume-1/theirs-too-is-the.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [words](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words.md)

> We hypostasize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outwards once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing.

[Philip K. Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick.md) · [Valis](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/valis.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/valis/we-hypostasize-information.md)

Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell "friend," I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell friend.

[Richard P. Feynman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman.md) · [The Meaning of It All](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all/if-the-professors.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language.

[Frank Herbert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert.md) · [Whipping Star](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/whipping-star.md) · p. 111 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/whipping-star/learning-a-language.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [illusions](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illusions.md)

> "We sift reality through screens composed of ideas. These idea systems are limited by language. That is to say: language cuts the grooves in which our thoughts move. If we seek new validity forms,we must step outside the language".

[Frank Herbert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert.md) · [The Santaroga Barrier](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/the-santaroga-barrier.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/the-santaroga-barrier/we-sift-reality.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.

[Frank Herbert](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert.md) · [Children Of Dune](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/children-of-dune.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/children-of-dune/if-you-believe.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [beliefs](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beliefs.md)

> "I prefer to read the words of the Prophet in the original."
>
> "Proper. Since the Koran cannot be translated — the 'map' changes on translation no matter how carefully one tries. You will understand, then, how difficult I found English. It was not alone that my native language has much simpler inflections and more limited tenses; the whole 'map' changed. English is the largest of the human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language — this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and the most flexible — despite its barbaric accretions ... or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it. Nobody tried to stop this process, the way some languages are policed and have official limits ... probably because there never has been, truly, such a thing as 'the King's English' — for 'the King's English' was French. English was in truth a bastard tongue and nobody cared how it grew — and it did! ? enormously, until no one could hope to be an educated man unless he did his best to embrace this monster.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/i-prefer-to-read.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Language itself shapes a man's basic ideas.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/language-itself-shapes.md)

Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> Short human words were never like a short Martian word — such as "grok" which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife.
>
> And this had been a very short word.
>
> Smith still felt that he had grokked rightly the human word "God" — the confusion had come from his own failure in selecting other human words. The concept was truly so simple, so basic, so necessary that any nestling could have explained it perfectly — in Martian. The problem, then, was to find human words that would let him speak rightly, make sure that he patterned them rightly to match in fullness how it would be said in his own people's language.
>
> He puzzled briefly over the curious fact that there should be any difficulty in saying it, even in English, since it was a thing everyone knew else they could not grok alive.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/short-human-words.md)

Topics: [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> We're not trying to bring people to God; that's a contradiction in terms, you can't even say it in Martian. We're not trying to save souls, because souls can't be lost. We're not trying to get people to have faith, because what we offer is not faith but truth — truth they can check; we don't urge them to believe it. Truth for practical purposes, for here-and-now, truth as matter of fact as an ironing board and as useful as a loaf of bread… so practical that it can make war and hunger and violence and hate as unnecessary as…. as — well, as clothes here in the Nest. But they have to learn Martian first. That's the only hitch — finding people who are honest enough to believe what they see, and then are willing to do the hard work — it is hard work — of learning the language it can be taught in. A composer couldn't possibly write down a symphony in English… and this sort of symphony can't be stated in English any more than Beethoven's Fifth can be.

[Robert A. Heinlein](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein.md) · [Stranger in a Strange Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/stranger-in-a-strange-land/were-not-trying.md)

Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> The genius of democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but even more in the new ideas they express.

[Alexis de Tocqueville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville.md) · [Democracy in America](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexis-de-tocqueville/democracy-in-america/the-genius-of-democracies.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [democracy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/democracy.md), [ideas](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas.md)

> The world of underlying form is an unusual object of discussion because it is actually a mode of discussion itself. You discuss things in terms of their immediate appearance or you discuss them in terms of their underlying form, and when you try to discuss these modes of discussion you get involved in what could be called a platform problem. You have no platform from which to discuss them other than the modes themselves.

[Robert M. Pirsig](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig.md) · [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-world-of-underlying.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md)

> The longer he practised his craft, the more conscious he became of the dynamic of language, of speech and writing as events in themselves. The simplest and most obvious proposition, stated in the most elementary language, could so mutate itself in the mind of the reader that it could express the opposite of what the writer had intended. What he wrote as evidence for the defence could hang the man he was defending.

[Morris West](https://www.leafyquotes.com/morris-west.md) · [Lazarus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/morris-west/lazarus.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/morris-west/lazarus/the-longer-he-practised.md)

Topics: [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> on genders of nouns: Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?

[David Sedaris](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris.md) · [Me Talk Pretty One Day](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris/me-talk-pretty-one-day.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-sedaris/me-talk-pretty-one-day/on-genders-of-nouns.md)

Topics: [humor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> They say French is more chaste than other languages; for my own part I think it more obscene; for it seems to me that the purity of a language does not consist in avoiding coarse expressions but in having none. Indeed, if we are to avoid them, they must be in our thoughts, and there is no language in which it is so difficult to speak with purity on every subject than French.
>
> One could not imagine more modest language than that of the Bible, just because of its plainness of speech. The same things translated into French would become immodest. What I ought to say to Emile will sound pure and honourable to him; but to make the same impression in print would demand a like purity of heart in the reader.

[Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md) · [Emile; or On Education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/they-say-french.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)

> This results from the fact that, up to five or six, children in town, brought up in a room and under the care of a nursery governess, do not need to speak above a whisper to make themselves heard. As soon as their lips move people take pains to make out what they mean; they are taught words which they repeat inaccurately, and by paying great attention to them the people who are always with them rather guess what they meant to say than what they said. It is quite a different matter in the country. A peasant woman is not always with her child; he is obliged to learn to say very clearly and loudly what he wants, if he is to make himself understood. Children scattered about the fields at a distance from their fathers, mothers and other children, gain practice in making themselves heard at a distance, and in adapting the loudness of the voice to the distance which separates them from those to whom they want to speak. This is the real way to learn pronunciation, not by stammering out a few vowels into the ear of an attentive governess. So when you question a peasant child, he may be too shy to answer, but what he says he says distinctly, while the nurse must serve as interpreter for the town child; without her one can understand nothing of what he is muttering between his teeth.
>
> I grant you uneducated people and villagers often fall into the opposite extreme. They almost always speak too loud; their pronunciation is too exact, and leads to rough and coarse articulation; their accent is too pronounced, they choose their expressions badly, etc. But, to begin with, this extreme strikes me as much less dangerous than the other, for the first law of speech is to make oneself understood, and the chief fault is to fail to be understood. To pride ourselves on having no accent is to pride ourselves on ridding our phrases of strength and elegance. Emphasis is the soul of speech, it gives it its feeling and truth. Emphasis deceives less than words; perhaps that is why well-educated people are so afraid of it. From the custom of saying everything in the same tone has arisen that of poking fun at people without their knowing it.

[Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md) · [Emile; or On Education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/this-results-from.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [upbringing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing.md)

> The child who is trying to speak should hear nothing but words he can understand, nor should he say words he cannot articulate; his efforts lead him to repeat the same syllable as if he were practising its clear pronunciation. When he begins to stammer, do not try to understand him. To expect to be always listened to is a form of tyranny which is not good for the child. See carefully to his real needs, and let him try to make you understand the rest. Still less should you hurry him into speech; he will learn to talk when he feels the want of it.
>
> Let the child's vocabulary, therefore, be limited; it is very undesirable that he should have more words than ideas, that he should be able to say more than he thinks. One of the reasons why peasants are generally shrewder than townsfolk is, I think, that their vocabulary is smaller. They have few ideas, but those few are thoroughly grasped.

[Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md) · [Emile; or On Education](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/the-child-who.md)

Topics: [children](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [upbringing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/upbringing.md)

> ...a clever Toronto lawyer was deep into a technical argument before the Supreme Court. His position was dependent upon a close reading of the legal text and turned on the letter of the law. Suddenly the chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, leaned forward and asked the counsel if his argument also worked in French. After all, the law is the law in both languages and a loophole in one tends to evaporate in the other. Only an argument of substance stands up. The lawyer had no idea what to reply.

[John Ralston Saul](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-ralston-saul.md) · [A Fair Country](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-ralston-saul/a-fair-country.md) · p. 128 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-ralston-saul/a-fair-country/a-clever-toronto.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [law](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/law.md), [lawyers](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lawyers.md)

> Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship.

[James Joyce](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce.md) · [Ulysses](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-joyce/ulysses/unsheathe-your-dagger.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [philosophy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy.md)

> No reference is truly direct—every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is.

[Douglas R. Hofstadter](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-r-hofstadter.md) · [Godel, Escher, Bach](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-r-hofstadter/godel-escher-bach.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-r-hofstadter/godel-escher-bach/no-reference-is-truly.md)

Topics: [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md), [symbols](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/symbols.md)

> A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative.

[H.L. Mencken](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken.md) · [American Language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/american-language.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/american-language/a-novelty-loses.md)

Topics: [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md), [language](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language.md)