Language is a kind of human reason, which has its own internal logic, of which man knows nothing. Language is the only true democracy. Philip Howard, The Thirteen Gremlins of Grammar
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. George Carlin
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. John Locke
The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! Helen Keller, The Story of My Life, 1902
Language was not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber ... she was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead – stone dead – and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul. Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848
Language is the core property that basically defines human beings. Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics, interview Ali G
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. Noam Chomsky
In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned. Richard Duppa, Maxims, 1830
Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences ... Language and knowledge are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and depends on a real knowledge of things. Annie Sullivan
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. Carl Sandburg, New York Times 13th February 1959
No-one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is vicious. Henry Brook Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein
The existing phrasebooks are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don’t tell you what to say. Mark Twain
There is no such thing as ‘the Queen’s English’. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares! Mark Twain
Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about. Benjamin Lee Whorf
I speak two languages: Body and English. Mae West
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I get just as much of a thrill out of constructing a good sentence that gets a laugh at the end as I do from a joke. Julian Clary
Change your language and you change your thoughts. Karl Albrecht
Works of imagination should be written in very plain language. The more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Pat Conroy
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say keep it accurate, keep it clear. Ezra Pound
Language is a form of human reason, and has its reasons which are unknown to man. Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, 1962
I propose to myself to imitate, and as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men ... I wish to keep my reader in the company of flesh and blood. William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, 1800
It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. ibid.
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost V i 39
The language I have learned these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego;
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp. William Shakespeare, Richard II I iii 159
Good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV 69-70, Shallow to Bardolph et al
Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience, and the king’s English. William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor I iv 5
You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is I know how to curse. William Shakespeare, The Tempest I ii 365-366, Caliban
I loved it. Especially the stories. This Bible was originally published in 1611. It aimed to take the Protestant faith to the English speaking world and it did. Hundreds of millions of copies have been printed over the last four hundred years. But there were radical unexpected consequences. You may think our modern world is founded on secular ideals. But I think that the King James’ version not only influenced the English language and literature more than any other book, it was also the seed-bed of Western democracy. Melvyn Bragg, The King James Bible: The Book That Charged the World, 2001
We have inherited from this Bible a vast granary of English. ibid.
We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language. Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, 1887
Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
Language is the Rubicon that divides man and beast. Max Muller
The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather that with words he was expressing supreme knowledge of things; language is, in fact, the first stage of occupation with science. Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
He [Sir William Jones] was a judge who went out to India in 1783. But he studied languages, oriental languages before he went ... Sandskrit resembles in some ways, has relationships with Greek and other languages ... These are sprung from a common source. Professor Colin Renfrew, Cambridge University
Go to, let us go down, and their confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. Genesis 11:7
For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. Zephaniah 3:9
Sweet language will multiply friends: and a fairspeaking tongue will increase kind greetings. Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 6:5
Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. Book of Mormon: I Nephi 1:2
I wonder what language truck drivers are using now that everyone is using theirs. Sydney Pfizer
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. George Bernard Shaw
Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. George Steiner