George Orwell Quotes

Those who have reflected on the powerful influence of language on thought will perceive in how different a manner people who speak in different languages are apt to think.

Every language having a structure, by the very nature of language, reflects in its own structure that of the world as assumed by those who evolved the language. In other words, we read unconsciously into the world the structure of the language we use.

Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.

It is probably impossible to think without words, but if we permit ourselves to think with the wrong words, we shall soon be entertaining erroneous thoughts; for words, which are given us for the expression of thought, have a habit of going beyond their proper bounds and determining the content of thought.

Language surely does affect our thoughts, rather than just labeling them for the sake of labeling them. Most obviously, language is the conduit through which people share their thoughts and intentions and thereby acquire the knowledge, customs, and values of those around them."

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

The constructions of language, which is to say the constructions of thought, are formed within experience, not the other way around.

Man does not exist prior to language, either as a species or as an individual.

The nature of language may determine what most people say, but I always speak my own meaning.

Ideas do not exist separately from language.

Language does our thinking for us.

How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or understand or explore.

The plain people, hereafter as in the past, will continue to make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do is to follow after it, haltingly, and not often with much insight into it.

Language is generated by the intellect and generates the intellect.

I hate women because they have brought into the currency of our language such expressions as "all righty" and "yes indeedy" and hundreds of others.

Language, as symbol, determines much of the nature and quality of our experience.

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

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information.

A people's speech is the skin of its culture.

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.

Language always preserves a play or figure/ground relation between experience, and perception and its replay in expression.