"'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word."

Willard Van Orman Quine, American Philosopher

Language, Training, Word

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"'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word."

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"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."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Language, Meaning, Creativity, Expression

"But language is wine upon his lips."

Virginia Woolf, British Author

Language, Wine, Expression, Art

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice."

T. S. Eliot, American Poet

Language, Words, Time, Change

"If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet

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"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish Writer

Language, Speech

"Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts."

Patrick Rothfuss, Australian Athlete

Language, Word, Power, Influence, Memory

"Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use."

Mark Twain, American Author

Language, Fight, Cats, Grammar

"Great is language . . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences,It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . . and of men and women . . . . and of all qualities and processes;It is greater than wealth . . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music."

Walt Whitman, American Poet

Language, Art, Expression, Humanity

"Words aren't made - they grow,' said Anne."

L. M. Montgomery, Canadian Author

Language, Word, Growth, Creation

"Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet

Language, Poetry, History, Expression

Explore more quotes by Willard Van Orman Quine

"The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples."

May

"It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it."

Philosophy

"Language is a social art."

Art

"Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word."

Meaning

"Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels."

Change

"Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption."

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Exlpore more Language quotes

"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."

"But language is wine upon his lips."

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice."

"If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest."

"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."

"Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts."

"Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use."

"Words aren't made - they grow,' said Anne."

"Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."

Explore more quotes by Willard Van Orman Quine

"The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples."

"It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it."

"Language is a social art."

"Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word."

"To be is to be the value of a variable."

"We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it."

"One man's observation is another man's closed book or flight of fancy."

"Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word."

"Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels."

"Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption."