David Bellos Quotes

#1. Translating is a respectable, valuable, creative and worthwhile use of a human brain.

David Bellos

#2. I express not the word for the word but the sense for the sense.

David Bellos

#3. Any utterance of more than trivial length has no one translation; all utterances have innumerably many acceptable translations

David Bellos

#4. It is translation, more than speech itself, which provides incontrovertible evidence of the human capacity to think and to communicate thought.
We should do more of it.

David Bellos

#5. No opinions would be worth holding except by those who read works in the original.

David Bellos

#6. To expand our minds and to become more fully civilized members of the human race, we should learn as many different languages as we can. The diversity of tongues is a treasure and a resource for thinking new thoughts.

David Bellos

#7. The difference between a translation and an original is not of the same order as the difference between powdered and steamed coffee.

David Bellos

#8. In painting as in prose, a good eye is not enough to tell you whether what you see is real or fake.

David Bellos