Quotes about Language

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Grammar makes the difference between feeling you're nuts and feeling your nuts.

Bad grammar makes me [sic].

Words have meaning and names have power.

We [God] have sent no messenger save with the tongue of his people, that he might make clear to them.

The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian "pahks" his "cah," the lost r's migrate southwest, causing a Texan to "warsh" his car and invest in "erl wells."

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

May no portent of evil be attached to the words I say.

The course that I have uniformly pursued, ever since I became a missionary, has been rather peculiar. In order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language, I deliberately abjured my own. When I crossed the river, I burnt my ships.

Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently.

Studying Latin can teach you how to think analytically.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.