Language Quotes

The language, the cultural patterns, the music, the material prosperity, and even the food of America are an amalgam of black and white.

To have a second language at your disposal, even if you only know it enough to read it with pleasure, is a sensible advantage....to secure the enormous boon of access to a second literature. Choose well, choose wisely, and choose one.

I am going to give you a warning: be on your guard, because I am going to speak, or try to speak, in French, a formidable undertaking and one which will put great demands on your friendship for Great Britain.

The greatest tie of all is language.... Words are the only things that last for ever. The most tremendous monuments or prodigies of engineering crumble under the hand of Time. The Pyramids moulder, the bridges rust, the canals fill up, grass covers the railway track; but words spoken two or three thousand years ago remain with us now, not as mere relics of the past, but with all their pristine vital force.

And what a noble medium the English language is. It is not possible to write a page without experiencing positive pleasure at the richness and variety, the flexibility and the profoundness of our mother-tongue.

The recognition of their language is precious to a small people.

Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.

Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing.

English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all - there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

When I was younger, I used to hate Germany. I hated the country, the people, the language, the culture, everything! But over the years I've grown to really appreciate the German people.

Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.

Now I'm really glad that I speak French, because, let's face it, girls dig it when a guy speaks French. They call it the language of love, and that ain't no coincidence. Plus, I love my French fans! Très jolie!

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.

There's a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

English is the easiest language to speak badly.

Language comes into being, like consciousness, from the basic need, from the scantiest intercourse with other human.

Mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.

Pantomime has always been the universal means of communication. It existed as the universal tool long before language was born. Pantomime serves well where languages are in the conflict of a common ignorance.