Language Quotes

An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.

Faith is more basic than language or theology.

When a French book becomes an international hit it is because of the author and not because of the language. The same goes for movies.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics are mass satanic rituals disguised as a celebration of Britain and sport. Their medium is the language of symbolism.

Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

Everybody gets a little dose of Shakespeare. He's the greatest playwright in the English language, but his politics are fairly square.

The common behavior of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.

No statement about God is simply, literally true. God is far more than can be measured, described, defined in ordinary language, or pinned down to any particular happening.

The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened.

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.

Proletarian language is dictated by hunger. The poor chew words to fill their bellies.

The things I see now on TV and in movies are so outlandish. Kids doing rude things with pies! And the language that they use! It's being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. I can't watch it. It turns me off.

People who do not speak our language very well do complain of feeling rebuffed by French people, who can sometimes be impatient, or even intolerant.

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.

In the year 1915 a series of trivial incidents led some Chinese students in Cornell University to take up the question of reforming the Chinese language.

If the president is going to use so much language of theology and the Bible, then let's use that language for a serious discussion about the war in Iraq. And that was never done.

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

Hominid and human evolution took place over millions and not billions of years, but with the emergence of language there was a further acceleration of time and the rate of change.

My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.

Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

On July 26, 1916, I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language, and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.

Greek was very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar, not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries.

The best way in the world to deceive believers is to cloak a message in religious language and declare that it conveys some new insight from God.

Restoring the Welsh language in Wales is nothing less than a revolution. It is only through revolutionary means that we can succeed.

In Algeria, I had begun to get into literature and philosophy. I dreamed of writing-and already models were instructing the dream, a certain language governed it.

Films, fiction, can encompass a whole global vision on a particular subject with any story, whatever it is. You can play the story in whatever country with whatever language in whatever style you want to tell the story in.

I think we're still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.

Why on earth do we want closer connection with England? We have little in common with English people except our language. We are fast becoming an entirely different people.

I became aware that all sounds can make meaningful language.

I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents.