Quotes about Language

Speech is the mirror of the mind.

The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. ... In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections.

I am convinced that music really is the universal language of beauty which can bring together all people of good will on earth

Lois Cook said that words must be freed from the oppression of reason. She said the stranglehold of reason upon words is like the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists. Words must be permitted to negotiate with reason through collective bargaining. That's what she said. She's so amusing and refreshing.

she considered a language that could carry nothing but love and simple truth.

Words were not just words, describing things a person could see. Even if most did not. Maybe they had to know a thing first, to see it.

It is true I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell. 

You must understand the language of your enemy.

REACTIVE LANGUAGE PROACTIVE LANGUAGE There's nothing I can do. Let's look at our alternatives. That's just the way I am. I can choose a different approach. He makes me so mad. I control my own feelings. They won't allow that. I can create an effective presentation.

Over, over, there is a soft place in my heart for all that is over, no, for the being over, words have been my only loves, not many.

What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one's drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one's language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.