Harsh Unharmonious Quote by Robert Lane Greene

“Peeves are like that: my peeves are law, yours are unhealthy obsessions.”

— Robert Lane Greene

“Bryson says we have no word for the Danish hygge, then goes on to tell us exactly what it means: “instantly satisfying and cozy”…

— Robert Lane Greene

“Other “no-word-for” and “can’t-be-translated” myths include the stories that the Irish have no word for “sex” or even “yes” (how, one wonders, is there…

— Robert Lane Greene

“Language is not law; it is in fact a lot like music. Speech is jazz – first you learn the basic rules, and then…

— Robert Lane Greene

“It is possible to communicate beautifully or boringly, in every language on Earth. But people don't like to believe this. They make self-aggrandizing myths…

— Robert Lane Greene

“Knowing the difference between “infer” and “imply” is no more likely to create a skeptical, bullshit-detecting citizen than knowing the atomic weight of uranium…

— Robert Lane Greene

“I'd start to explain with the outward sheepish and inner pride of the nerd.”

— Robert Lane Greene

“America’s short-lived experiment with language planning is so obscure to modern memory that while the Klingon language has a 3,000-word entry on Wikipedia, as…

— Robert Lane Greene

“Virtually anything can be translated—“X cannot be translated” usually means nothing more exciting than “We have a word, X, that you need three or…

— Robert Lane Greene

“I think flexibility, humility, and multilingualism should take the place of sticklerism, arrogance, and nationalism when we think about language. I”

— Robert Lane Greene

“Afrikaans was the language of the white minority in South Africa, and the forced learning of it created resentment among blacks. Even so, Nelson…

— Robert Lane Greene

“Arguments about language are usually arguments about politics, disguised and channeled through one of our most distinctive markers of identity.”

— Robert Lane Greene