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"We assume, to begin with, that the individual is at least as complex in his internal structure as the language is which he speaks - otherwise, how could he speak a language which is complex?"
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"Words are clothes that thoughts wear."
"Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning: the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination."
"A word is not filling in the gaps, but the fertilization of silence."
"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear."
"Our language now has become quick-moving (in syllables), and may be very supple and nimble, but is rather thin in sound and in sense too often diffuse and vague. the language of our forefathers, especially in verse, was slow, not very nimble, but very sonorous, and was intensely packed and concentrated - or could be in a good poet."
"Chameleonesque, hobbitish, unicorned, stompled, selfishism, and unwakeable may not be real words, but you do know what they mean."
"Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise; Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games; Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free."
Explore more quotes by Kenneth L. Pike
"Revelation and the nature of truth must be viewed in reference to the structure of language."
"The price that one pays for refusing to act on the truth as one sees it, is to be led to believe untruth to avoid guilt."
"If the scholar feels that he must know everything about any topic, he is in trouble - and will not publish with a clear conscience."
"I wanted a theory that would allow one to live outside the office with the same philosophy one uses inside it."
"Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements."
"Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation."
"The view of the local scene through the eyes of a native participant in that scene is a different window."
"Christianity stands or falls as a living program, a way of life, made concrete in the life of man by the life of God through the life of the concretely living Christ."
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