Philip Charles Durham Quotes

I have every reason to believe that an individual man or woman fluent in several tongues seduces, possesses, remembers differently according to his or her use of the relevant language.

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

It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.

Language does our thinking for us.

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 very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

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."

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

Ideas do not exist separately from language.

So long as we use a certain language, all questions that we can ask will have to be formulated in it and will thereby confirm the theory of the universe which is implied in the vocabulary and structure of the language.

A different language is a different vision of life.

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.

The way I think or sing about something is very different if it is in Spanish or English.

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.

The Quebec government ought to require respect by law for the French language in the names of companies and in their advertising ... Manufacturers and big trading companies must at some time rather appear before the government to be registered or to be legally recognized. That's the time the government should lie in wait for them. Give yourselves French names, advertise yourselves in French, " we don't know you," it can say.

For the benefit of those who are not bilingual, I will now continue in English.

I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages.

Language is at the root of Quebec nationalism.

It is asked of me that I give my first speech in this house in a language [English] other than my mother tongue [French.] …. Even if I knew English as intimately as I knew French, I would still give my first speech in the language of my French Canadian compatriots

It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual, but it is a curse for a society to be bilingual… A society must be able to talk amongst itself.

Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens - it is an imposition on the state.

We will never have "a" Chicano English or Spanish because of regional differences. But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish. What we do have to do is fight for the right to use those two languages in the way that it serves us.

Language is very deceiving. In certain languages, there is certain vocabulary that doesn't exist in other languages. It totally changes how people feel about things.

Let's not forget, there are three languages in Canada - English, French, and there's the language of jobs.