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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. "Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung [Logical-Philosophical Treatise]." Annalen der Naturphilosophie [Annales of Natural Philosophy], 1921.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by Michael Beaney. Oxford University Press, 2023.

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Other people's words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you're going.

Zadie Smith

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Smith, Zadie. "That Crafty Feeling." 24 Mar. 2008, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA. Lecture.

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The words we use are the worlds we live in.

Richard Ford

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Ford, Richard. "The Rumpus Interview with Richard Ford." Interviewed by Ben Pfeiffer. Rumpus, Nov. 26, 2014, therumpus.net/2014/11/the-rumpus-interview-with-richard-ford/

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The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

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Ortega y Gasset, Jose. La deshumanización del Arte e Ideas sobre la novela [The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel]. Revista de Occidente, 1925.

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Ortega y Gasset, Jose. "The Dehumanization of Art." The Dehumanization of Art, and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature, translated by Helene Weyl. Princeton University Press, 2019.

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There is a weird power in a spoken word... And a word carries far—very far—deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim

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Conrad, Joseph. "Lord Jim: A Sketch." Blackwood's Magazine. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, Oct. 1899-Nov. 1900.

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Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

Martin Heidegger

Building Dwelling Thinking

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Heidegger, Martin. "Bauen Wohnen Denken [Building Dwelling Thinking]." Darmstadt Symposium on Man and Space. 5 Aug. 1951, Darmstadt, Germany. Lecture.

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We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

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Science and Linguistics

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Whorf, Benjamin Lee. "Science and Linguistics." MIT Technology Review, Apr. 1940.

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For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: Second Series (Emerson)

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Poet.” Essays: Second Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "The Poet (1844)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Original Citation

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. "Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung [Logical-Philosophical Treatise]." Annalen der Naturphilosophie [Annales of Natural Philosophy], 1921.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, translated by Michael Beaney. Oxford University Press, 2023.

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Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

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Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Moeurs de Province [Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners]. Revue de Paris, 1 Oct. 1856 - 15 Dec. 1856. Serial.

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Current Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary, edited and translated by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics, 2011, pt. 2, ch. 12.

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Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is...to woo women.

Dead Poets Society

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Dead Poets Society. Directed by Peter Weir, Touchstone Pictures/Silver Screen Partners IV, 1989.

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Dictionaries are but the depositories of words already legitimated by usage. Society is the work-shop in which new ones are elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if illformed it is rejected in society, if well-informed, adopted, and, after due time, laid up in the depository of dictionaries.

Thomas Jefferson

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Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to John Adams. 15 Aug. 1820.

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Jefferson, Thomas. "John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820." The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Including the Autobiography, The Declaration of Independence & His Public and Private Letters, edited by Adrienne Koch and William Peden. Modern Library, 1998.

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There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.

Whiplash

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Whiplash. Directed by Damien Chazelle, Blumhouse Productions/Right of Way Films/Bold Films, 2014.

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Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

Rudyard Kipling

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Kipling, Rudyard. "Surgeons and the Soul." The Royal College of Surgeons Annual Dinner. 14 Feb. 1923, London, England, UK.

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Kipling, Rudyard. "Surgeons and the Soul." A Book of Words. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928.

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Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language; yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.

Tertullian

On the Testimony of the Soul

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Tertullian. De Testimonio Animae [The Testimony of the Soul]. c. 198, ch. 6.

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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.

Samuel Johnson

Quoted in The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, by James Boswell

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Johnson, Samuel. Quoted in journal entry, written by James Boswell. 18 Sept. 1773.

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Johnson, Samuel. Quoted in "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides." A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, edited by Jack Lynch and Celia Barnes. Oxford University Press, 2021.

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An idea does not pass from one language to another without change.

Miguel de Unamuno

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De Unamuno, Miguel. The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples, translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch. Macmillan and Company, 1921, preface.

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Words being arbitrary must owe their power to association, and have the influence, and that only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought.

Samuel Johnson

Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets

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Johnson, Samuel. "Cowley." Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. London, c. 1779.

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Johnson, Samuel. "Cowley." The Lives of the Poets: A Selection, edited by Roger Lonsdale. Oxford University Press, 2009.

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I've always sensed that language is the great liberator. The fitting phrase, the precise word-these permit us to be more nearly ourselves.

Carol Shields

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Shields, Carol. "An Interview with Carol Shields from Penguin.com," author's website, n.d., http://www.carol-shields.com/larryspartyinterview.pdf.

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I know you Lawyers can, with ease,
Twist words and meanings as you please;
That language, by your skill made pliant,
Will bend to favour every client.

John Gay

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Gay, John. "The Dog and the Fox." Fables. London: John Knapton, Paul Knapton, and T. Cox, 1738, pt. 2, I. 1.

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