John Sterling Quotes

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.

Words are the mind's wings, are they not?

Talking payes no toll.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

Why must one talk? Often one shouldn't talk, but live in silence. The more one talks, the less the words mean. (Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie)

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.

Speaking is a beautiful folly; with that man dances over all things.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.

It was a profound saying of Wilhelm Humboldt, that 'Man is man only by means of speech, but in order to invent speech he must be already man.'

Speech is our second possession, after the soul-and perhaps we have no other possession in this world.

Every man is born with the faculty of reason and the faculty of speech, but why should he be able to speak before he has anything to say?

Speech ... is an invention of man's to prevent him from thinking.

Leave words to them whom words, not doings, move.

Speech is the mark of humanity. It is the normal terminus of thought.

What you say is who you are. How you say it is your style.

Get what you can with words, because words are free, but the words of an armed man ring that much sweeter.

Speech is the index of the mind.

If everything is perfect, language is useless. This is true for animals. If animals don't speak, it's because everything's perfect for them. If one day they start to speak, it will be because the world has lost a certain sort of perfection.

For when all else is done, on­ly words re­main. Words en­dure.

Speech is but the incorporation of thought.

Words were her plague and words were her redemption.

Language is a form of organized stutter.