2,489 Quotes About Language

German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

Radio and television speech becomes standardized, perhaps better English than we have ever used. Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident of human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, so will our speech become one speech.

Words themselves are all the ghosts we need.

I wish I didn’t need words to speak to her. They sometimes hold very different meanings for us both.

I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, "Mamma, can I open the light?" She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art. It was a sort of metaphor, but she was not using it as ornamentation.

Verbalize someone's actions back to them. Menace them with language, the language mirror. Death by feedback.

Because you think your language is the best language? That because you were born and your parents babbled to you in this tongue, that it is the best language to speak? How small is your mind.

Was there little time between the invention of language and the coming of true and false?