2,489 Quotes About Language

The fragmentation of languages, from the point of view of the history of language, can not be called a fall; it is not disastrous, but useful, because, without eliminating the possibility of mutual understanding, it gives the versatility to universal thought. While the slowness and correctness with which it is done, indicates that to seek a mystical explanation for it would be as inappropriate as e.g. for changes in the earth's crust or atmosphere.

Of course, in deciding to manipulate the language of public discussion, they encouraged the unseeing for which some of us have shown such aptitude in times past.

For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt. (...) For there to be a gift, it is necessary that the donee not give back, amortize, reimburse, (...)

Language is not the content of thought but the vessel into which we pour the ambivalences and contradictions of our thinking, afloat on the current of time.

The purity of a language dispossesses it of its wealth; a correctness that is all too rigid takes away its strengh and manhood. In a city as big as Paris, forty learned men are procured each year, at no expense, who infalliably know what is pure and polite in their mother tongue and what is neccessary for the monopoly of this junkshop.

No matter how well I could pronounce words or expressions, there was no terroir in my vocabulary. Words all meant the same to me—almost like those black and white letter magnets you stick to a refrigerator. Table, 
Chaise, Connard, Pute, Vélo, Merde were all interchangeable and non-denominational, standing next to each other in my brain like a bad 
haiku. 


By thinking in the prescribed language, we conform without realising.

The sweetly discoursing tongue lures forth the serpent from its lair.

Jednakże historia łączenia i dostosowywania do siebie językowych wariantów była nie tylko o wiele dłuższa, ale i bardziej sensowna od krótkiej historii ich rozwodu. Podobnie jak historia budowania mostów i dróg była o wiele dłuższa i bardziej sensowna od krótkiej historii ich burzenia.