The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Ludwig Wittgenstein3 quotes
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1921The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1922Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953Edward Sapir2 quotes
Language and our thought-grooves are inextricably interwoven, are, in a sense, one and the same. — Edward Sapir · 1921Were a language ever completely "grammatical," it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak. — Edward Sapir · 1921Samuel Johnson2 quotes
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations. — Samuel Johnson · 1773Words being arbitrary must owe their power to association, and have the influence, and that only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought. — Samuel Johnson · 1779Benjamin Lee Whorf1 quote
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. — Benjamin Lee Whorf · 1940Carol Shields1 quote
I've always sensed that language is the great liberator. The fitting phrase, the precise word-these permit us to be more nearly ourselves. — Carol Shields · 1993Fletcher1 quote
There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job. — Fletcher · 2014Gustave Flaubert1 quote
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. — Gustave Flaubert · 1856Henry Ward Beecher1 quote
All words are pegs to hang ideas on. — Henry Ward Beecher · 1887Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1 quote
He who does not know foreign languages knows nothing of his own. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1821John Gay1 quote
I know you Lawyers can, with ease,
Twist words and meanings as you please;
That language, by your skill made pliant,
Will bend to favour every client. — John Gay · 1732John Keating1 quote
Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is...to woo women. — John Keating · 1989Jose Ortega y Gasset1 quote
The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man. — Jose Ortega y Gasset · 1925Joseph Conrad1 quote
There is a weird power in a spoken word... And a word carries far—very far—deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. — Joseph Conrad · 1900Martin Heidegger1 quote
Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man. — Martin Heidegger · 1951Miguel de Unamuno1 quote
An idea does not pass from one language to another without change. — Miguel de Unamuno · 1913Octavio Paz1 quote
I learned precision of language from Japanese poetry. — Octavio PazOliver Sacks1 quote
Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes. — Oliver Sacks · 2010Ralph Waldo Emerson1 quote
For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1844Richard Ford1 quote
The words we use are the worlds we live in. — Richard Ford · 2014Rudyard Kipling1 quote
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. — Rudyard Kipling · 1923Samuel Beckett1 quote
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. — Samuel Beckett · 1969Tertullian1 quote
Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language; yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere. — Tertullian · 198Thomas Jefferson1 quote
Dictionaries are but the depositories of words already legitimated by usage. Society is the work-shop in which new ones are elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if illformed it is rejected in society, if well-informed, adopted, and, after due time, laid up in the depository of dictionaries. — Thomas Jefferson · 1820William Jones1 quote
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; So strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps, no longer exists. — William Jones · 1786Zadie Smith1 quote
Other people's words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you're going. — Zadie Smith · 2010Zhuang Zhou1 quote
People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn't there? — Zhuang Zhou · 220 BC