It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732Quotes
God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.
—The Qur’an, c. 620Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
—John Locke, 1690Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.
—Martin Heidegger, 1949It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.
—Jean Baudrillard, c. 1987Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
—George Orwell, 1944It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCThe more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BC