2,489 Quotes About Language

The years of his life had not been gentle, and there was something untamable about him; his eyes seemed to say everything and nothing at all, almost as if they spoke a dying language few could appreciate or even understand.

The spoken word has come to dominate many Protestant forms of worship: the words of prayers, responsive readings, Scripture, the sermon, and so forth. Yet the spoken word is perhaps the least effective way of reaching the heart; one must constantly pay attention with one’s mind. The spoken word tends to go to our heads, not our hearts.

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics.

It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.

Regret is one the scariest words in any language and success is one of the most beautiful ones. What are you waiting for?

Love for others is the foundation of leadership.Simplicity is the language of leadership.Authenticity is the true character of leadership.

Body language has no translation.

When you’re in love, you want to live forever. You want the emotion, the excitement you feel to last. Reading in Italian arouses a similar longing in me. I don’t want to die, because my death would mean the end of my discovery of the language. Because every day there will be a new word to learn. Thus true love can represent eternity.

I like the sounds of words. Words are very enjoyable. I like words because they are... seductive. And I like words because they can contain... fantasies.