Quotes about Language

Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution centre for Bibles in many languages.

We spent our whole lives in unconsous excercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats—and one always secretes too much jelly.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.

Remember that how you say something is as important as what you say.

Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

I come from a tradition - from the Jewish tradition, which believes in words, in language, in communication.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

As a writer, I play with words all day long. I toy with them, listen for their overtones, crack them open, and try to stuff my thoughts inside.

Paul says that Spirit lives inside us, detecting needs we cannot articulate and expressing them in a language we cannot comprehend. When we don't know what to pray, he fills in the blanks. Evidently, it is our very helplessness that God, too, delights in. Our weakness gives opportunity for his strength.