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Language Quotes by Lewis Thomas
- The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life.
- We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is…
- We can take some gratification at having come a certain distance in just a few thousand years of our existence as language users, but it…
- Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and…
- Human language... prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.
- As evolutionary time is measured, we have only just turned up and have hardly had time to catch breath, still marveling at our thumbs, still…
More Language Quotes
- Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by… — Hannah Arendt
- High thoughts must have high language. — Aristophanes
- In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement… — Aristotle
- But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me… — Chinua Achebe
- War is what happens when language fails. — Margaret Atwood
- As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you're going to say, 'Where did… — Margaret Atwood
- A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. — Wystan Hugh Auden
- A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically. — Diane Ackerman