Linguistic Communication Quotes

The basic agreement between human beings, indeed what makes them human and makes them social, is language.

Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. . .

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.

What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture.

... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.

Language is one of the fundamental principles of human understanding. It is the way we interact with each other and how we grasp the world we live in. Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language - not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue.

[Language is] really a pretty amazing invention if you think about it. Here I have a very complicated, messy, confused idea in my head. I'm sitting here making grunting sounds and hopefully constructing a similar messy, confused idea in your head that bears some analogy to it.

There is no use indicting words, they are no shoddier than what they peddle.

The bare fact that language consists of sounds which are mutually intelligible is enough of itself to show that its meaning depends upon connection with a shared experience.

Young. Old. Just Words.

He that will write well in any tongue must follow this counsel of Aristotle: to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.

The language of sin was universal, the original Esperanto.

Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.

The fundamental thing about human languages is that they can and should be used to describe something; and this something is, somehow, the world. To be constantly and almost exclusively interested in the medium - in spectacle-cleaning - is a result of a philosophical mistake.

Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us. If we were no longer here, words would lose their whole function. They would end up as words that are never spoken, and words that aren't spoken are no longer words. - (Where I'm Likely To Find It)

I became aware that all sounds can make meaningful language.

No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra as a language.

The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.

The aim of language...is to communicate...to impart to others the results one has obtained...As I talk, I reveal the situation...I reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it.

Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin.

For gods' sake, Strider," Torin snapped. "Open your mouth and form some words. While you're at it, stop staring at the angel like he's a tasty treat.

There is a narrow class of uses of language where you intend to communicate. Communication refers to an effort to get people to understand what one means. And that, certainly, is one use of language and a social use of it. But I don't think it is the only social use of language. Nor are social uses the only uses of language.

You're all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things!

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.