Famous Language Quotes

A laudation in Greek is of marvellous efficacy on the title-page of a book.
-- Jean Baptiste Poquelin

A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.
-- Gaston Bachelard

Accent is the soul of a language; it gives the feeling and truth to it.
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Accuracy of language is one of the bulwarks of truth.
-- Anna Jameson

All language reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved.
-- Casey Miller

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.
-- Antonin Artaud

And don't confound the language of the nation With long-tailed words in osity and ation.
-- John Hookham Frere

And who in time knows whither we may vent the treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores this gain of our best glories shall be sent, 't unknowing Nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident may come refined with the accents that are ours?
-- Samuel Daniel

And who in time knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory shall be sent, T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?
-- Samuel Daniel

Don Chaucer. well of English undefyled On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.
-- Edmund Spenser

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
-- Robert Benchley

Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.
-- William Shakespeare

For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
-- Ambrose Bierce

For I am a bear of very little brain and long words bother me.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Grammar, which knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hands makes them obey its laws.
-- Jean Baptiste Poquelin

Great Britain and the United States are nations separated by a common language.
-- William Shakespeare

He has strangled His language in his tears.
-- William Shakespeare

How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?
-- E M Forster

I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.
-- Sigismund

I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around my mouth like marbles--tabernacle and pharisee and parable, tresspass and Babylon and covenant.
-- Penelope Lively