Maggie Nelson Quotes

Thinking about language, while thinking _in_ language, leads to puzzles and paradoxes.

...language is not the frosting, it's the cake.

We must plow through the whole of language.

Language is, without a doubt, the most momentous and at the same time the most mysterious product of the human mind.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

Bilingualism is for me the fundamental problem of linguistics.

We have only the language for fun and miserable, and maybe we need language for deep and shallow, meaningful and meaningless.

I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science.

It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought.

A language is a more ancient and inevitable thing than any state.

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Language is one component of the human cognitive capacity which happens to be fairly amenable to enquiry. So we know a good deal about that.

For if consciousness is based on language, then it follows that it is of much more recent origin than has been heretofore supposed. Consciousness come after language! The implications of such a position are extremely serious.

Language is the crowning achievement of human beings, and that is something Muslims have always known and revered. We are a literate people whose miracle is a Book from an unlettered man, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the most articulate and eloquent human being who ever lived. We honor our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in honoring language that he loved so much and used so well.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

For me, language is something that I've always loved. When I read, that's what I look for. When I write, that's what I strive for.

For one thing, studying language is by itself a part of a study of human intelligence that is, perhaps, the central aspect of human nature. And second, I think, it is a good model for studying other human properties, which ought to be studied by psychologists in the same way.

Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.

I was always interested in language. I thought, why not? If a painting, by the normal definition of the term, is paint on canvas, why can't it be painted words on canvas?

Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function...They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard...you've never seen their shape, but you feel...you suspect...they correspond to...an empty space inside you...or in the universe.

There's one thing that shows up on all of the lists of what makes us human: language. Our ability to share our thoughts and complex information with others far surpasses all the barks, squeaks and growls of our animal friends.

Reason" in language - oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.