The language of translation ought never to attract attention to itself. — John Hookham Frere Copy Share Image
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence. — George Steiner Copy Share Image
The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me, is to see something and then translate how I see it. — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
The first rule of translation: make sure you know at least one of the bloody languages! — Anonymous Copy Share Image
Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers. — Jorge Luis Borges Copy Share Image
The best translations are always the ones in the language the author can't read. — Jorge Amado Copy Share Image
It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation. — Friedrich Nietzsche Copy Share Image
“translations are like wives—either beautiful or faithful, seldom both.” — Raymond Ibrahim Copy Share Image
The Bible has been through at least half a dozen translations by the time you read it. Plus, when the word of… — Craig Ferguson Copy Share Image
It would not be easy even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract… — John Stuart Mill Copy Share Image
I think translation is an impossible job, and I admire the people who do it in a way that brings poetry to… — Joan Larkin Copy Share Image
People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday, the Bible in translation is being read to… — Ngugi wa Thiong'o Copy Share Image
I don't think that someone who does not speak the original language can ever expect to produce a real translation. — Christian Wiman Copy Share Image
A song is like a smile. If you meet people from another country, even if you don't speak the same language, you… — Clay Aiken Copy Share Image
That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could… — Alan Watts Copy Share Image
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
The oldest cliché in the world is about "what's lost in translation," but you don't very often read much intelligent about what's… — Sam Hamill Copy Share Image
I wrote Baghdad Central right after translating a great work by Ibrahim al-Koni, who is sort of a master of Arab fiction.… — Elliott Colla Copy Share Image
By the age of nine I had a thorough knowledge of contemporary Polish literature as well as of foreign literature in Polish… — Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont Copy Share Image
I'm interested in the murky areas where there are no clear answers - or sometimes multiple answers. It's here that I try… — Taryn Simon Copy Share Image
“To translate a text is to be conducted into its mysteries in a way that no mere act of reading—however conscientious or… — David Bentley Hart Copy Share Image
I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed; I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement,… — Walt Whitman Copy Share Image
The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary,… — Thomas Paine Copy Share Image
Ceux qui revent eveilles ont conscience de 1000 choses qui echapent a ceux qui ne revent qu'endormis. The one who has day… — Edgar Allan Poe Copy Share Image
I did translations of Grimms' Fairy Tales and became very charmed about that way of looking at things. Fairy tales tell a… — Lore Segal Copy Share Image
How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on… — Herbert Spencer Copy Share Image
“My goal is to act as a faithful interpreter, preserving as much of the original's nuances of meaning as possible without embellishment… — Ken Liu Copy Share Image
Rather than thinking of sound and sense in my essays as two opposing principles, two perpendicular trajectories, as they are often considered… — Cole Swensen Copy Share Image
With action in Hollywood, a choreographer will be hired to design an amazing fight, with all these cool little narrative bits, such… — Joey Ansah Copy Share Image
No one really knew the sciences except the Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, by reason of his length of life and experience,… — Roger Bacon Copy Share Image
When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind… — Randall Jarrell Copy Share Image
In case any are puzzled by the different translations from which I draw strength and help and delight, it is like this:… — Amy Carmichael Copy Share Image
The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
