2,489 Quotes About Language

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

Languages are not tools that humans design but biological objects, like the visual or immune or digestive system.

I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.

All translations are made up" opined Vikram, "Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something

I can do everything with my language but not with my body. What I hide by my language, my body utters. I can deliberately mold my message, not my voice. By my voice, whatever it says, the other will recognize "that something is wrong with me". I am a liar (by preterition), not an actor. My body is a stubborn child, my language is a very civilized adult...

It [discovering Finnish] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.

I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?)