Native Tongue Quotes

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.

This, the language of deception, we both understand. We were born to it, along with the curses.

Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles.

Why don’t you purchase an Italian dictionary? I will assume the expense.” “I have one,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s very good. Half the words are missing.” “Half?” “Well, some,” she amended. “But truly, that’s not the problem.” He blinked, waiting for her to continue. She did. Of course. “I don’t think Italian is the author’s native tongue,” she said. “The author of the dictionary?” he queried. “Yes. It’s not terribly idiomatic.

He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish.

For me, chess is a language, and if it's not my native tongue, it is one I learned via the immersion method at a young age.

I hold 'Mi Tierra,' my first Spanish-language album, very close to me because that was all done in my native tongue and won me my first Grammy.

Only idiots and infants need things. The language of needs is the native tongue of socialists, therapists, and paternalists of all sorts and is addressed to needy dependents. The language of wants is spoken by self-respecting adults and is addressed to other self-respecting adults.

I'm obsessed with 'Wicked', and I'd love to play Nala in 'The Lion King'. Some of the songs from 'The Lion King' are performed in my native tongue, so when the cast performed an extract from the show in 'Strictly' in the language I grew up with, it made me cry.

I have always felt most comfortable singing in English, perhaps because I think in English.

I think at the end of the day the diversity has served as a major… that's what has determined the difference between The Roots and some of the other artists from our graduating class. I feel we followed the De La Soul, the Native Tongue blueprint.

Portuguese is the language of my heart; it's the language of my feelings. It's the language that I feel I can express myself best in.

Apl has a lot of songs that are paying homage to his native tongue. He's from the Philippines. He has songs inspired by his culture.

It's so rare that I get to do something in my own accent in my own hometown.

What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.

When I sing in Spanish, my tone is different. I feel more relaxed because that's how I speak to my family.

Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

Once you identify and learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language, I believe that you will have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage. Love need not evaporate after the wedding, but in order to keep it alive most of us will have to put forth effort to learn a secondary love language. We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.

No matter what your native tongue is, no matter what part of the world you're from, if your native tongue is distorted with an accent, somehow that's always funny.

Unlike Conrad or Nabokov, I didn't have circumstances which would have coerced me out of my native tongue altogether.

We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.

My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions–which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way.