Language Quotes
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The world is mental in some way that we do not yet understand, but that which we're edging toward understanding. And the world is made of language. I can't say that enough. Whenever we get into these discussions about reality, or effects in space and time, we are operating outside this assumption that the world is made of language.
Terence McKenna
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We are all American. If we believe that we are Americans, if we believe that what binds us together is what we have in common, then it must include the common language, and that common tongue is English.
Ernest Istook
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There was only a language of families, a tongue woven from a lifetime of shared experiences. Its vocabulary consisted of gestures and curt sentences, incomprehensible to all outsiders. Inside, it wasn't difficult to translate at all.
Courtney Milan
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English has more flexibility. It's a very plastic, very shapeable, very expressive language. In that sense it feels quite natural.
Ha Jin
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The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: Humility.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Seemingly innocuous language like 'Oh, I'm flexible' or 'What do you want to do tonight?' has a dark computational underbelly that should make you think twice. It has the veneer of kindness about it, but it does two deeply alarming things. First, it passes the cognitive buck: 'Here's a problem, you handle it.' Second, by not stating your preferences, it invites the others to simulate or imagine them. And as we have seen, the simulation of the minds of others is one of the biggest computational challenges a mind or machine can ever face.
Brian Christian
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We like to pile language on language. Hunter [ S. Thompson] was an influence on me, no doubt about it.
P. J. O'Rourke
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The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences.
Ferdinand de Saussure
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Many strange-looking people obviously dress according to deep convictions that are not shared by on-lookers - they clearly do not know how they actually look, but are satisfied with what their clothes make them feel and believe about their looks. These people may be the true originals, even though they are certainly not the best appreciated. The famous messages of dress, the well-known language of clothes, is very often not doing any communicating at all; a good deal of it is a form of private muttering.
Anne Hollander
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With some exceptions in science fiction and other genres I have small difficulty in avoiding anything that could be called American literature. I feel it is unnatural, not I think entirely because it uses a language that is not mine, however closely akin to my own.
Kingsley Amis
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The whole world has changed, so you just stay current with the world. There's nothing different in my language of how I say things.
Andrew Dice Clay
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The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language.
Juan Goytisolo
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I want a language that speaks the truth.
Studs Terkel
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Pantaenus was one of these and is said to have gone to India. It is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time. After many good deeds, Pantaenus finally became the head of the school at Alexandria, and expounded the treasures of divine doctrine both orally and in writing.
Elton Welsby
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When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!
William Halsey
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Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional programs, but they only talk about them and cannot alter their ungainly properties. Unlike von Neumann languages, the language of ordinary algebra is suitable both for stating its laws and for transforming an equation into its solution, all within the "language."
John Backus
