Top 100 Quotes About The Written Language
#1. He lives at Balbec? crooned the Baron in a tone so far from interrogatory that it is regrettable that the written language does not possess a sign other than the question mark to end such apparently unquestioning remarks. It is true that such a sign would be of little use except to M. de Charlus.
Marcel Proust
#2. Ezra Pound was a crackpot on social and political issues, but he knew what he was talking about in matters of the written language.
Pete Hamill
#3. When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.
Maria Montessori
#4. To excavate is to open a book written in the language that the centuries have spoken into the earth.
Spyridon Marinatos
#5. I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: 'Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the
downtrodden of every race and language and color.'
Thaddeus Stevens
#6. Of all the weapons the Europeans brought to the Pacific, guns included, none was more powerful and more capable of effecting lasting change than written language.
Laurence Bergreen
#7. I was sixteen and just waking up to the peculiar rules of love - how what's left unsaid between two people can be a far more complicated language than what's written on the page.
Tiffany Baker
#8. Anything well written with good language and clarity and honesty is worth doing. It comes out of the same tradition as Shakespeare.
Michael Moriarty
#9. It's like the man is an open book but whatever his story is just happens to be written in a different language.
J.M. Darhower
#10. It was written in the ancient RUNIX spell-language, and is read-only and can't be modified.
Jasper Fforde
#11. Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy.
Bertrand Russell
#12. In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all.
Susan Sontag
#13. Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient association with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air.
David Abram
#14. The Chinese had gunpowder, but it didn't occur to them to put it in a gun. They possessed the compass but didn't go anywhere. They invented paper, printing, and a written form of their language, but hardly anyone in China was taught to read.
P. J. O'Rourke
#15. The Pharisees deliberately avoided the Late form of Biblical Hebrew (LBH), which is the language of the Bible written after the exile, presenting their teaching in the language of the spoken vernacular.
Angel Saenz-Badillos
#16. The mind is like a computer. It runs programs. Most of the software has been poorly written. It is written in the language of fear.
Frederick Lenz
#17. I don't read much nonfiction because the nonfiction I do read always seems to be so badly written. What I enjoy about fiction - the great gift of fiction - is that it gives language an opportunity to happen.
Stanley Elkin
#18. Sometimes in composition class, when I have been confronted by someone who simply cannot get the first word written on paper, I give the following advice: Say your essay into a tape recorder and then write it down.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
#19. The one thing I've always liked about that boy. As much as I hate his body language screaming he owns you, with him next to you ain't no one gonna mess with my little girl.It may as well be written on his chest in neon lights.
Elizabeth Reyes
#20. However much we admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or abovethe fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.
Henry David Thoreau
#21. Because Shakespeare's language is so expansive, we're under this misconception that it's difficult. But I discovered that it's easy because it's so brilliantly written. The words are perfect, and the language is intelligent and very emotional.
Jessica Lange
#22. It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.
Lafcadio Hearn
#23. Lev Leokov was an open book. I only needed to discover the language in which his pages were written.
Belle Aurora
#24. The English language was spoken and written - but at the time of Shakespeare it was not defined, not fixed. It was like the air - it was taken for granted, the medium that enveloped and defined all Britons. But as to exactly what it was, what its components were - who knew?
Simon Winchester
#25. I could never see a book written in a foreign language without the most ardent desire to read it.
Bayard Taylor
#26. Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.
Robert Bringhurst
#27. Words have a force far beyond that of ink stains on pages or spoken sounds... Whether written or spoken, language found in forbidden books can warp space-time and tear the fabric of reality.
Daniel Harms
#28. When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.
Jamais Cascio
#29. Every drop of human blood contains a history book written in the language of our genes.
Spencer Wells
#30. Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#31. This grimoire was written in the language of angels."
"Shouldn't that be,like, harp music or chanting, and not hard-core hieroglyphics?
Rachel Hawkins
#32. Lilac makes on occasion a sound between a sniff and a snort that's as damning as all improper words in the language and, like them, can't be written down.
Leslie Ford
#33. Charlie Studd has written me a delightful letter ... He thinks the Chinese language was invented by the devil to prevent the Chinese from ever hearing the Gospel properly.
Ion Keith-Falconer
#34. Language is just as rule-based in its newest slang forms, and just as sophisticated as it ever was in ancient Rome. But the rules, now as then, are written from below, not from above.
Matt Ridley
#35. There exists a single complete copy, is written in Annaren, the principal language spoken in Annar. In translating
Alison Croggon
#36. I suggest to young professors that their first work should be written in a jargon only to be understood by the erudite few. With that behind them, they can ever after say what they have to say in a language 'understand of the people.'
Bertrand Russell
#37. The life these words speak of is not worth the ink they are written in ... He now knows that the only words worth writing down arise when language is impossible.
Andrei Makine
#38. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England.
Thomas B. Macaulay
#39. What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is written. For the essence of an age, we look to its poetry and its prose, not its talk shows.
Peter Brodie
#40. Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.
Marilyn Vos Savant
#41. If I had my way books would not be written in English but in an exceedingly difficult secret language ... This plan would have the advantage of scaring off all amateur authors, retired politicians, country doctors ... who would not have the patience to learn the secret language.
Robertson Davies
#42. The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.
Galileo Galilei
#43. It would be revealed years later that the language had been lifted almost verbatim from an ad that had appeared in the New York Times and other papers over the names of isolationist congressmen, written and paid for by Nazi agents.
Richard Moe
#44. He robbed him of a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the level of the originals as they were first produced.
Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
#45. Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that they use constantly in conversation, in the same way we may look to written language as an idealization rather than a reflection of ourselves.
Edmund White
#46. Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe
Galileo Galilei
#47. For it has come about, by the wise economy of nature, that our modern spirit can almost dispense with language; the commonest expressions do, since no expressions do; hence the most ordinary conversation is often the most poetic, and the most poetic is precisely that which cannot be written down.
Virginia Woolf
#48. The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears.
John Muir
#49. Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics, and the narrative is unmistakable.
Kenneth R. Miller
#50. You're like someone from a fairy story written in a language I don't even know."
"The prince, I hope."
"No, you're the dragon, a beautiful wicked dragon.
Lisa Kleypas
#51. I never know the heron as it flies at first. What is the slow, wide-winged figure in the sky? Then I see it, like a word in a foreign language, like seeing one's own name written in a strange alphabet and recognizing it, I say it: the heron.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#52. The use of language around drugs is really important. So we find that it's increasingly difficult in our society to find the word "drug" not connected to the word "abuse." The notion of a responsible use of drugs is written out in the language of our culture.
Graham Hancock
#53. To understand the Universe, you must understand the language in which it's written, the language of Mathematics.
Galileo Galilei
#54. You may translate books of science exactly ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
Samuel Johnson
#55. Following the invention of writing, the special form of heightened language, characteristic of the oral tradition and a collective society, gave way to private writing. Records and messages displaced the collective memory. Poetry was written and detached from the collective festival.
Harold Innis
#56. I don't procrastinate because I love the English language and the process of storytelling, and I'm always curious to see what will come to me next. If you procrastinate a lot, you might be one who loves having written, but doesn't so much like writing.
Dean Koontz
#57. The laws of biology are written in the language of diversity.
E. O. Wilson
#58. The world was full of waistrels and waifs, sycophants and spies - all of whom put words to the wrong use, who made everything that was said or written suspect
David Levithan
#59. If you cross the Atlantic with an American lady you invariably fall in love with her before the journey is over. Travel with the same woman in a railway car for twelve hours, and you will have written her down in your own mind in quite other language than that of love.
Anthony Trollope
#60. While they read and talked together, there was opened before them the great book wherein God has written, in the language of mountain, and tree, and sky, and flower, and brook, the things that make truly wise those who pause to read.
Harold Bell Wright
#61. With 'True Grit,' the language was very specific, as is Shakespeare. You couldn't really improvise, nor would you really ever have to. I never felt the need to. It was all so beautifully written, and it was all right there.
Hailee Steinfeld
#62. Language and written language are the only real way we have to see inside another person's thoughts and to know what makes another person human. Without writing, we just wouldn't have that kind of access.
Carol Windley
#63. He comments on how amazing it is that everything in the universe can be described by the twenty-six written characters with which they have been working.
Robert M. Pirsig
#64. Erotic play discloses a nameless world which is revealed by the nocturnal language of lovers. Such language is not written down. It is whispered into the ear at night in a hoarse voice. At dawn it is forgotten.
Jean Genet
#65. How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private letter written during the Eisenhower administration)
John Steinbeck
#66. The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought
Albert Einstein
#67. So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
Vikram Seth
#68. Emacs is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful.
Neal Stephenson
#69. In my youth I regarded the Universe as an open book, printed in the language of physical equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which, in our rare moments of grace, we are able to decipher a small fragment.
Arthur Koestler
#70. There is nothing terribly difficult in the Bible - at least in a technical way. The Bible is written in street language, common language. Most of it was oral and spoken to illiterate people. They were the first ones to receive it. So when we make everything academic, we lose something.
Eugene H. Peterson
#71. I've made a dozen films in the English language. But then, for love, for my family and friends, I returned to Europe ... I annoyingly - looking back - turned down films like 007, 'For Your Eyes Only,' written specially for me.
Ornella Muti
#72. I try to make the voice in my head come out onto the page. I try to make it much more conversational than other writing. I speak everything, so if something sounds right I write it. It's more about sound and the rhythm of speech than written language.
James Frey
#73. The earliest language was body language and, since this language is the language of questions, if we limit the questions, and if we only pay attention to or place values on spoken or written language, then we are ruling out a large area of human language.
Paulo Freire
#74. In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass grew and water ran. It is no small recommendation when a book will stand the test of mere unobstructed sunshine and daylight.
Henry David Thoreau
#75. Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
Erich Fromm
#77. Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
Jimmy Breslin
#78. Command of English, spoken or written, ranks at the top in business. Our main product is words, so a knowledge of their meaning and spelling and pronunciation is imperative. If a man knows the language well, he can find out about all else.
William Feather
#79. A returned love letter is written in the most violent language, by your own hand.
Jardine Libaire
#80. Where the bodily presence is weak and the speech contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can achieve?
Charlotte Bronte
#81. Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes - I mean the universe - but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written
Galileo Galilei
#82. Galileo wrote that 'the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics; without its help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it.
Steven Pinker
#83. Do Not Disturb signs should be written in the language of the hotel maids.
Tim Bedore
#84. Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
Alfred North Whitehead
#85. I've always had a fondness for language ... English. Not that I use it correctly but I like words. I like books and I like poetry.. I like the written word ... and the sung word.
Joel Plaskett
#86. Richard Burton had a tremendous passion for the English language, especially the spoken and written word
Frank Bough
#87. Travel provided many interesting experiences, but perhaps the most useful lesson I learned was that I really had no proficiency for learning the thousands of characters of the written Chinese language.
Eric Allin Cornell
#88. I think the language as spoken in Limerick and Cork has not really been written; 'City of Bohane' is a combination of the two. Bohane is a little kingdom. When I began writing it, I realised that it was in the future and that it was a place that didn't care about anything that happened outside it.
Kevin Barry
#89. The fixation of the theater in one language
written words, music, lights, noises
betokens its imminent ruin.
Antonin Artaud
#90. What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion. What I'm finding is that in our increasingly dysfunctional U.S. society, marvelous poetry is being written - out of and amid the dysfunction.
Adrienne Rich
#91. At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow.
Neil Gaiman
#92. Phonocentrism places higher value on spoken language as being more primary than and thus superior to written language, which it conceives as necessarily corrupting the original Subject - the center of meaning.
Minae Mizumura
#93. He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.
Amy Tan
#94. I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things: I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all.
Claire-Louise Bennett
#95. As with ... even the written word, the remote overview is one more wrenched perspective that developing civilization has glued, collagelike, to the once unified experience of life.
Bruce Berger
#96. 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
#97. The knowledge of your destiny is available to you, well before
it actually happens, as a message streaming continuously from
your heart to your brain, written in the language of longing.
Martha Beck
#98. Written language must be considered as a particular psychic reality. The book is permanent; it is an object in your field of vision. It speaks to you with a monotonous authority which even its author would not have. You are fairly obliged to read what is written.
Gaston Bachelard
#99. I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.
William Jones
#100. Punctuation is the pragmatics of written language.
M.B. Parkes
