Quotes about Language

Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.

A man who has the ability to generate a new word and to inject it into the bloodstream of the language seems to me only a little lower than the Creator of light and darkness. If you write a book, you may be fortunate enough to be read for a while, until other, better books come along and take its place; but to produce a new word is to approach immortality.

Maybe they feared that a knowledge of languages would expose me too to the blandishments of Europe, that wonderful, murderous continent.

What surrounded me did not count. All that counted was made of words.

His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.

I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

ACATALECTIC  (ACATALE'CTIC)   n.s.[  Gr.]A verse which has the compleat number of syllables, without defect or superfluity.

ALKALI  (A'LKALI)   n.s.[The word alkali comes from an herb, called by the Egyptians kali; by us glasswort.] This

And buxom, which means only obedient, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand for wanton; because in an ancient form of marriage, before the Reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience, in these terms: I will be bonair and buxom in bed and at board.

Amidst your Ardor for Greek and Latin I hope you will not forget your mother Tongue. Read Somewhat in the English Poets every day. . . . You will never be alone, with a Poet in your Poket. You will never have an idle Hour.