language Quotes

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.

Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.

A certificate of live birth is not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination as a birth certificate.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say 'LOL.' Just what? But it means 'laugh.' Why don't you just laugh? What are you doing?

If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.

Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.