Quote by Karen Healey

“It is the nature of languages that a pretty translation is not accurate, and an accurate translation finds its own beauty without help.”

— Fraus-Dolus

“There can never be an absolutely final translation.”

— Robert M. Grant

A translation can never equal the original; it can approach it, and its quality can only be judged as to accuracy by how close…

— Gregory Rabassa

In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation, and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it…

— George Henry Lewes

“As long as human beings speak different languages, the need for translation will continue.”

— Nataly Kelly

Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“To translate a text is to be conducted into its mysteries in a way that no mere act of reading—however conscientious or frequent—makes possible.…

— David Bentley Hart

“The translator's task is essentially a difficult and often a thankless one. He is severely criticized if he makes a mistake, but only faintly…

— Eugene A. Nida

“All I require of a translator is that he or she be a more gifted writer than I am, and in at least two…

— Kurt Vonnegut

When we translate, we always to some extent betray the text we are translating. That is why translation is so hard and thankless. All…

— Jay L. Garfield

“God knows our hearts. There is no need for an idle formula or an intermediary. No need for language either: God is beyond translation.”

— Hilary Mantel

I am not one of those translators who think that working closely with the writer will yield the best translation.

— Adam Morris