Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
—Lily Tomlin
Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.
—J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) English Novelist, Short Story Writer
Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.
—Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German Existential Philosopher
Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
There is in every child a painstaking teacher, so skilful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian Physician, Educator
Language is the source of misunderstandings.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Language is the amber in which a thousand precious thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning-flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and perishing as the lightning. Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck, and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.
—Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–86) Irish Anglican Clergyman, Religious Leader, Poet
Everything can change, but not the language that we carry inside us, like a world more exclusive and final than one’s mother’s womb.
—Italo Calvino (1923–85) Italian Journalist, Short Story Writer, Novelist, Essayist
But the fruit that can fall without shaking indeed is too mellow for me.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Language as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of God.
—Noah Webster (1758–1843) American Lexicographer, Journalist, Author
Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
—Noah Webster (1758–1843) American Lexicographer, Journalist, Author
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade before the public. Never clothe them in vulgar or shoddy attire.
—George W. Crane (1901–95) American Psychologist, Physician
Language is an archeological vehicle… the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.
—Russell Hoban (b.1925) American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Writer
The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
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 (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
Language is like amber in its efficacy to circulate the electric spirit of truth, it is also like amber in embalming and preserving the relics of ancient wisdom, although one is not seldom puzzled to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but which, in the course of ages, have passed out of sight and been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths, of which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse in a happy moment of divination.
—George Augustus Henry Sala (1828–95) British Journalist
I wish life was not so short, he thought. languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.
—J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) British Scholar, Author
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
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 (1933–2018) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
A different language is a different vision of life.
—Federico Fellini (1920–93) Italian Filmmaker
If everything is perfect, language is useless. This is true for animals. If animals don’t speak, it’s because everything’s perfect for them. If one day they start to speak, it will be because the world has lost a certain sort of perfection.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?
—Russell Hoban (b.1925) American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Writer
In general, every country has the language it deserves.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Language is the light of the mind.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
Even if people are suspicious of the motives I think that learning and speaking two languages can only be a good thing for people.
—Stephen Harper
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer