Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. — Kató Lomb
Short Foreign Language Quotes
We need a president who's fluent in at least one language. — Buck Henry
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. — Ludwig Wittgenstein
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
All language is but a poor translation. — Franz Kafka
You can never understand one language until you understand at least two. — Geoffrey Willans
As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being — Tomas Garrigue Masaryk
The first rule of translation: make sure you know at least one of the bloody languages! — Faiz Ahmad Faiz
The only true language in the world is a kiss. — Alfred De Musset
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse. — Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse. — Charles V
Foreign Language Image Quotes
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Learning A Foreign Language Quotes
My neighbor has two dogs. One of them says to the other, "Woof!" The other replies, "Moo!" The dog is perplexed. "Moo? Why did you say 'Moo'?" The other dog says, "I'm trying to learn a foreign language." — Morey Amsterdam
Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club -the community of speakers of that language. — Frank Smith
If only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you. — Lisa Kleypas
A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
Columbia University, where I went to study in 1993, insisted its undergraduates learn a foreign language, so I discovered French. — Aravind Adiga
Basketball, in America, is like a culture. It is like a foreigner learning a new language. It is difficult to learn foreign languages and it will also be difficult for me to learn the culture for basketball here. — Yao Ming
I think that great programming is not all that dissimilar to great art. Once you start thinking in concepts of programming it makes you a better person...as does learning a foreign language, as does learning math, as does learning how to read. — Jack Dorsey
The language of friendship is not words, but meanings.
Basque is one of the world's more alarming languages. Only a handful of adult foreigners, they say, have ever managed to learn it. The Devil tried once and mastered only three words - profanities, I assume. — Jan Morris
The best way to learn a language may be an episode of jail in a foreign country. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad. — Ella Maillart
I will not allow my daughters to learn foreign languages because one tongue is sufficient for a woman. — John Milton
Speaking Foreign Language Quotes
If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen sie Deutsch sprechen. — Willy Brandt
I speak the truth but I guess that's a foreign language to ya'll! — Lil Wayne
I believe the United States should allow all foreigners in this country, provided they can speak our native language... Apache. — Steve Martin
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.
Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages — Dave Barry
Page 61: No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is and the would be put an end to it. — Akira Kurosawa
He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Love will find its way through all languages on its own.
As the president of Kosovo, I am more concerned about the current situation with the employment standing at around 70 % of the population, which is young, with great potential, speaking many foreign languages and having wide expertise. — Ibrahim Rugova
If I were to arrive at a foreign country like Czech Republic, I don't have to speak Czech to understand the feeling of the local sensations through architecture. That is a kind of communication that no language can perform. — Jimenez Lai
Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms. — John Millington Synge
Many autistic people have this ability to learn weird foreign languages, and I think I've heard of autistic Americans who have been obsessed [with] Icelandic and learned it and speak it fluently, and I've seen it done in interviews on television. — Jon Gnarr
Inspirational Quotes
Religion is for people who fear hell, spirituality is for people who have been there. — David Bowie
One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life. — Kahlil Gibran
Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly — Paulo Coelho
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE. — Winston Churchill
I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them. — Madam C. J. Walker
Every day may not be good... but there's something good in every day — Alice Morse Earle
Language Learning Quotes
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. — Galileo Galilei
Learning Indian mannerisms, how to wear saris, and the language were a challenge. — Amy Jackson
As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can". — John Muir
In your silence, when there are no words, no language, nobody else is present, you are getting in tune with existence.
The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually, your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally. You need to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe and sometimes, pardon my language, kick some ass. — Queen Elizabeth II
Learning is never done without errors and defeat. — Vladimir Lenin
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. — Richard P. Feynman
There are hundreds of languages around the world, but a smile speaks them all.
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. — Dennis Ritchie
There is in every child a painstaking teacher, so skilful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything! — Maria Montessori
Expressing myself through language was always something that I had to learn to do more so than others. — Maajid Nawaz
I’m not going to a language school to learn Italian, that’s not what I came to do at Ferrari. — Kimi Raikkonen
Native Language Quotes
How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right. — Black Hawk
My art speaks and will continue to speak, transcending barriers of nationality, language and other forces that may be divisive, fortifying the greatness of the spirit that has always been the foundation of the Ojibwa people. — Norval Morrisseau
Our native language is like a second skin, so much a part of us we resist the idea that it is constantly changing, constantly being renewed. — Casey Miller
We all smile in the same language.
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. — George Bernard Shaw
In the UK, most of the nasheeds that I did were in my native language, Urdu. Youngsters who could not understand the language came up to me... [and] said it was a great experience to just listen. That was actually very heart warming for me. — Junaid Jamshed
Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer. — Edsger Dijkstra
Music is the universal language of mankind.
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. — Benjamin Lee Whorf
To be successful in my native France, where people speak the same language and understand me, is nothing. — Edith Piaf
A Swedish physicist can not discuss his work with fifty people unless he goes abroad. A Swedish economist can get opinions and instructions in his native language from thousands upon thousands of his fellow citizens. — George Stigler
We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries for someone to invent their native language. — Jaron Lanier
International Language Quotes
Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing. — Claude LeviStrauss
Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing. — Claude Levi-Strauss
My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern themselves with the international language movement would be: 'Back Esperanto loyally.' — J. R. R. Tolkien
If English is spoken in heaven. God undoubtedly employs Cranmer as his speechwriter. The angels of the lesser ministries probably use the language of the New English Bible and the Alternative Service Book for internal memos. — Prince Charles
Art is an international language, understood by all. — Igor Babailov
Sports is like rock 'n' roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions. — Phil Knight
Comics are an international language, they can cross boundaries and generations. Comics are a bridge between all cultures. — Osamu Tezuka
Music can make a difference. There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can. — Marvin Hamlisch
What makes international cinema so interesting is that each territory has its own sensibility. When you look at an Indian or French film, there's a certain flavor. And even though the language is different, if the film is successful, it has something very common and understandable. — Wong Kar-wai
Instrumental music can spread the international language. — Herb Alpert
Foreign Culture Quotes
Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. — Edward T. Hall
Science is an integral part of culture. It's not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It's one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition. — Stephen Jay Gould
Travel enables us to enrich our lives with new experiences, to enjoy and to be educated, to learn respect for foreign cultures, to establish friendships, and above all to contribute to international cooperation and peace throughout the world. — Jules Verne
The vitality of a culture is in its capacity to assimilate foreign influences. The culture that's defensive and closed condemns itself to decadence. — Juan Goytisolo
I think I have made it clear that I never intended to make enemies. But in an age when anti-foreign sentiment was running high, it was unavoidable that in my position as an advocate of open intercourse and free adoption of Western culture, I should make some adversaries. — Fukuzawa Yukichi
Four months filming in a foreign country. You know, it is great because you get to learn all about different cultures. I feel so much more enriched. — Michelle Trachtenberg
In the Afghan people, I found the most resilient, welcoming people who, for the first time in my career, never judged me over my right to tell this story - as a woman or a foreigner. A people who cherish their culture and history and the films that have captured that culture. — Pietra Brettkelly
America is no longer the melting pot it used to be. It has now become a tossed salad of foreigners that arrive to our shores wanting to keep their culture and forcing our acceptance. — Jay Severin
The nation will benefit in the long term if it continues to be open to foreign expertise. This will help the country to establish its business culture and environment faster, based on international best practice. — Hassanal Bolkiah
Foreign Countries Quotes
The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity. — Steven Biko
The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and poor countries of the world. — Kwame Nkrumah
After traveling through fourteen foreign countries and appearing before all the royalty and nobility I have only one wish today. That is that when my eyes are closed in death that they will bury me back in that quiet little farm land where I was born. — Annie Oakley
Our children should be taught to beware of everything foreign and not to disclose any state or party secrets to foreigners... for foreigners are eyes for their countries, and some of them are counterrevolutionary instruments [in the hands of imperialism]. — Saddam Hussein
Icelanders are grateful to meet foreigners who have heard of their country. And even more grateful to hear someone say it deserves better. — Halldór Laxness
Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries — Henry A. Kissinger
North Korea continues to play the crazed, powerful weakling to good effect. Its foreign policy consists of being suspicious of everyone except the Chinese, who provide 84% of the country’s imports and buy 85% of its exports. — Tim Marshall
If you know a country's geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy. — Napoleon Bonaparte
French Language Quotes
In language gender is particularly confusing. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English? — Marlene Dietrich
I thought English is a strange language. Now I think French is even more strange. In France, their fish is poisson, their bread is pain, and their pancake is crepe. Pain and poison and crap. That's what they have every day. — Xiaolu Guo
I don't know what it is about the french language, it seems to be scared of coming out of the mouth so it comes out the nose instead. — P.D.Q. Bach
French is a language that makes those who speak it both calm and dynamic. — Bernard Pivot
English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background. — David Crystal
One thing I can say about the French language is that no one in the world loves their language as much as they do. — Mads Mikkelsen
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. — Mark Twain
German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful. — Paul Celan
French is the language that turns dirt into romance. — Stephen King
Zis and zat' when uttered by the French is considered charming, but 'dis and dat' as an Africanism is ridiculed as gross and ugly. — Alice Childress
Language Acquisition Quotes
As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue. — Roger Ascham
We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression. — Charles Taylor
What is a nation without a mother tongue? — Jack Edwards
A masculine education cannot spare from professional study and the necessary acquisition of languages, the time and attention which I have bestowed on the compositions of my countrymen. — Anne Seward
A masculine education cannot spare from professional study and the necessary acquisition of languages, the time and attention which I have bestowed on the compositions of my countrymen. — Anna Seward
A man reacheth not to excellence with one language. — Roger Ascham
Learn Languages the Right Way. Language acquisition games and abstract communicative method are bullshit. The second-best way to learn a foreign language is alone in a room doing skull-numbing rote memorization of vocabulary, grammar, key phrases, and colloquialisms. The best way is in bed. — Chuck Thompson
In fact, by universal grammar I mean just that system of principles and structures that are the prerequisites for acquisition of language, and to which every language necessarily conforms. — Noam Chomsky
I never taught language for the purpose of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge. — Anne Sullivan Macy
English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection. — Thorstein Veblen
Still, Lenin personally also forced through the deportation in fall 1922 of theologians, linguists, historians, mathematicians, and other intellectuals on two chartered German ships, dubbed the Philosophers’ Steamers. GPU notes on them recorded: “knows a foreign language,” “uses irony.” — Stephen Kotkin
Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery. — Amy Chua
More than ever, I feel that the human race is one. There are differences of colour, language, culture and opportunities, but people's feelings and reactions are alike. People flee wars to escape death, they migrate to improve their fortunes, they build new lives in foreign lands, they adapt to extreme hardship…. — Sebastiao Salgado
Independent India's leaders will neither use a foreign language nor rule from a remote place. — Vallabhbhai Patel
I suggest that US foreign policy can still be defined as "kiss my ass or I'll kick your head in." But of course it doesn't put it like that. It talks of "low intensity conflict..." What all this adds up to is a disease at the very centre of language, so that language becomes a permanent masquerade, a tapestry of lies. — Harold Pinter
Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. It's like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you'll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud. — Dan Wells
[When her daughter suggested the President refer in his conversation with foreign dignitaries about lawn care to 'fertilizer' instead of to 'manure':] But remember, it took me almost thirty years to get him to call it manure. — Bess Truman
I say I'm in love with her. What does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is as though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. LIke genius she is ignorant of what she does. — Jeanette Winterson
The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it. — Learned Hand
Symptoms are the body's mother tongue; signs are in a foreign language. — John Brown
Writing in a foreign language - has brought me to the cries of the women silently rebelling in my youth, to my own true origins. — Assia Djebar
No one would starve in independent India. Its grain would not be exported. Cloth would not be imported by it. Its leaders would not use a foreign language and finding justice in it would be neither costly nor difficult. — Vallabhbhai Patel
Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language. — Slobodan Milosević
The soul inside me is the last foreign language I'm learning. — Yehuda Amichai
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. — Christopher Morley
A common creation demands a common sacrifice, and perhaps not the least potent argument in favour of a constructed international language is the fact that it is equally foreign, or apparently so, to the traditions of all nationalities. — Edward Sapir
Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined. — Cathy McMorris Rodgers
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner. Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled. — Bill Bryson
If you do not know his language, you will never understand a foreigner's silence. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present. — Ross MacDonald
The intellectual is called on the carpet... Don't you conceal something? You talk a language which is suspect. You don't talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you. — Herbert Marcuse
A foreign observer is struck by our gentleness: by the orderly behaviour of the English crowds, the lack of pushing and quarrelling, the willingness to form queues. — George Mikes
My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight. — Arabella Weir
A British imperium enabled Scots to feel themselves peers of the Ebglish in a way still denied them in an island kingdom. The language bears that out very clearly. The English and the foreign are still all too inclined to refer to the island of Great Britain as 'England'. But at no time have they ever customarily referred to an English empire. — Linda Colley
A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In Conclusion
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