Language Quotes

Language most shows a man speak that I may see thee.

~ Ben Jonson

True eloquence consists of saying all that should be not all that could be said.

~ La Rochefoucauld

Even if language is a living evolving organism we don't have to embrace all the changes that occur during our lifetimes. If language is so alive it can get sick.

~ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Our language one of our most precious natural resources deserves at least as much protection as our woodlands streams and whooping cranes.

~ James Lipton

His words were softer than oil yet they were drawn swords.

~ Bible

Language is an inventory of human experience.

~ L. W. Lockhart

Change is legitimate and inevitable for our language is a mighty river picking up silt and flotsam here and discarding it there but growing ever wider and richer.

~ Robert Macneil

The grossest thing in our gross national product today is our language. It is suffering from inflation.

~ James Reston

A word has its use Or like a man it will soon have a grave.

~ Edward Arlington Robinson

No matter how eloquently a dog may bark he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.

~ Bertrand Russell

Most people have to talk so they won't hear.

~ May Sarton

Every utterance is an event and no two events are precisely alike. The extreme view therefore is that no word ever means the same thing twice.

~ Louis B. Saloman

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed the deeper they burn.

~ Robert Southey

If you can teach me a new word I'll walk all the way to China to get it.

~ Turkish Proverb

I have always suspected that correctness is the last refuge of those who have nothing to say.

~ Friedrich Wasiman

When you're five years old, and you're running a business that people did not think there was room for, getting attention is not a bad thing. Letting it be known by whatever colorful language is necessary is not a bad thing.

~ Brit Hume

Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years.

~ Hamdi Ulukaya

CIOs have earned a strategic seat at the table, but now they've got to hold that seat - and the only way they can do that is to converse in the language of business value and business benefits and business outcomes that all align perfectly with the strategic agenda of the company.

~ Mark V. Hurd

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

~ John Millington Synge

The attitude of independence toward a constructed language which all national speakers must adopt is really a great advantage, because it tends to make man see himself as the master of language instead of its obedient servant.

~ Edward Sapir

I think it's important and I think it's true that our life experience is going to be about our attitude, our thoughts, our beliefs, our speech and our actions. We can transform our life experience simply by changing our language.

~ Jason Mraz

No one's going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude.

~ Rupert Murdoch

I think one of the things that language poets are very involved with is getting away from conventional ideas of beauty, because those ideas contain a certain attitude toward women, certain attitudes toward sex, certain attitudes toward race, etc.

~ Diane Wakoski

Certain kinds of speed, flow, intensity, density of attacks, density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is, I think, easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude, a common language.

~ Evan Parker

When I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was 'It will be O.K.' I would wonder, 'How the hell is it going to be O.K.?' The worst word in the English language is 'hope.'

~ Bobby Knight

But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense.

~ Charles Ives

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

~ Carl Sandburg

If you respect a language and culture, it shows in your work.

~ A. R. Rahman

I think that in any language when you have a real relationship, and there is love and respect between people, infidelity is always something difficult to accept - whether you are Chinese, British, French. I think that is a universal concept... or problem.

~ Jean-Michel Jarre

In this respect I suppose I'm the total opposite of Garry. With his very emotive body language at the board he shows and displays all his emotions. I don't.

~ Vladimir Kramnik

Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.

~ Yusef Komunyakaa

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.

~ Federico Fellini

Right before 'American Dreams,' I started to pursue these avenues, like short films and getting into a couple night courses to really study photography and cinematography, and the language of visual storytelling.

~ Tom Verica

Dreams say what they mean, but they don't say it in daytime language.

~ Gail Godwin

I do find the sibling connection endlessly fascinating, as I do all family dynamics. I like how siblings seem to create their own parentless mini-civilization within a family, one that has its own laws, myths, language, humor, its own loyalties and treacheries.

~ Jandy Nelson

The ultimate storyteller is Shakespeare, who was able to get the 'groundlings' to laugh at his bawdy humor and storylines but could still be studied by scholars to this day for the complexity of his language, meter, and symbolism. That's the real guy.

~ Jon Favreau

I love language, and I love the failure of language.

~ Nate Lowman

He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish.

~ José Rizal

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer, if the paper clip popped up and said, 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language, you'll get more money.'

~ Demetri Martin

I really want to do a film in another language. My dad's from Germany, so it'd be really cool to do a film in German. I'm not quite fluent, but I can get there. And my accent's pretty good. I wouldn't feel too out of my element.

~ Kirsten Dunst