Thomas Hobbes Quotes

Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

Being that can be understood is language.

Language is a nice way to remember things.

What is reading, but silent conversation.

Man can no more think without words than see without light.

Comprehension follows perception.

I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.

I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.

A phenomenon must be to some extent comprehensible to be perceived at all.

Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear.

Isn't telling about something-using words, English or Japanese-already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?

Without words to objectify and categorize our sensations and place them in relation to one another, we cannot evolve a tradition of what is real in the world.

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

Reading taught me how to write.

If you haven't read you don't have the voice. The lack of voice eliminates experience.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

It's what you do every time. You isolate what you know, and you create a mental image of what you're doing. Every time you speak you don't have to think about it. Words come out of your mouth based on what you know. That's the same job every time.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents.

While one man can discover a certain thing by himself, another is never able to understand it, even if taught by means of all possible expressions and metaphors, and during a long period; his mind can in no way grasp it, his capacity is insufficient for it.

Language is the dress of thought.

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

There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

I can't talk about anything or write about anything if I don't understand it. So a lot of the stuff that I go through and a lot of the time that I spend is understanding.

I have never had a problem with people not being able to understand the words and the meanings in Titus.