Quotes about translation offer valuable insights into the art and significance of transferring meaning from one language to another. These quotes highlight the challenges and complexities involved in the process, emphasizing the need for accuracy and cultural understanding. They also acknowledge the power of translation to bridge gaps, foster understanding, and preserve the rich tapestry of languages and cultures worldwide.
Machine translation of signs, text, and speech brings down language barriers and facilitates ever more cross-cultural meetings of like minds. — Balaji Srinivasan
The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry. — Leonardo Sciascia
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him. — Friedrich Schleiermacher
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence. — George Steiner
Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good. — Etgar Keret
A translation can never equal the original; it can approach it, and its quality can only be judged as to accuracy by how close it gets. — Gregory Rabassa
Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. — Robert Frost
Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks. — Jimmy Breslin
I do not so easily think in words.... after being hard at work having arrived at results that are perfectly clear... I have to translate my thoughts in a language that does not run evenly with them. — Francis Galton
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. — Warren G. Bennis
If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen sie Deutsch sprechen. — Willy Brandt
Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space. — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you. — Stephanie Perkins
I translated Beatles songs for my English class. — Christian Lacroix
Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality. — Edith Sitwell
Better degrees don't automatically translate into better skills and better jobs and better lives — Andreas Schleicher
When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. — John Donne
Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. — Arnold Bennett
Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928]. — Walter Benjamin
Translation Image Quotes
A stupid man's report of what clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Translate Quotes
The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. French translation — Marcel Pagnol
For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new. — Alexander Fleming
Intimate knowledge of God is possible if we habitually search His Holy Scriptures & translate what we find into obedience. — George Muller
Every language is a world. Without translation, we would inhabit parishes bordering on silence.
In my games I have sometimes found a combination intuitively simply feeling that it must be there. Yet I was not able to translate my thought processes into normal human language. — Mikhail Tal
Design must be functional and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics, without any reliance on gimmicks that have to be explained. — Ferdinand Porsche
Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language. So we're talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people's lives in history. — Ngugi wa Thiong'o
If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.
Action not backed by knowledge and knowledge not translatable into action, both can not stand the test of time. — Pandurang Shastri Athavale
Just as typography is human speech translated into what can be read, so photography is the translation of reality into a readable image. — Herbert Bayer
It is only with united effort and faith in our destiny that we shall be able to translate the Pakistan of our dreams into reality. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah
I do not think that it is right for me to start giving opinions about the human rights situation of any country, including Gambia, except when those crimes translate into the crimes that I have to investigate. — Fatou Bensouda
Lost In Translation Quotes
Poetry is what gets lost in translation. — Robert Frost
You've often heard me say - perhaps too often - that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more. — Robert Frost
Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
It is in the translation that the innocence lost after the first reading is restored under another guise, since the reader is once again faced with a new text and its attendant mystery. That is the inescapable paradox of translation, and also its wealth. — Alberto Manguel
I feel sometimes that I'm in a constant state of being lost in translation, and I guess that why I write songs. — Laura Marling
It's the most terrifying day of your life, the day the first one is born. Your life, as you know it, is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk, and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you'll ever meet in your life. — Bill Murray
My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings. All my works in pastels are the products of obsessional neurosis and are therefore inextricably connected to my disease. I create pieces even when I don’t see hallucinations, though. — Yayoi Kusama
From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber. — Harry Seidler
The task of cinema or any other art form is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls. — Maya Deren
Earth as a dynamical system is a really bad computer. A lot of information processing is concentrated in a few tiny compute nodes brains, chips with terrible interconnects, even as bad as use of physical translation and air pressure waves. And powered primitively by combustion. — Andrej Karpathy
It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand. — Fredrik Bajer
I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. — John Lennon
Physical education for the body to be effective must be rigorous and detailed, far sighted and methodological. This will be translated into habits. These habits should be controlled and disciplined, while remaining flexible enough to adapt themselves to circumstances and to the needs of growth and development of the being. — Sri Aurobindo
A lot of scientists are hesitant to get involved with industry. It's seen as, you know, getting in bed with the devil, actually. But I found that doing this has been really the only way and one of the best ways I know to take a finding from the bench side to people. — David Sinclair
The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu spiritual text written around 2,000 years ago, translated the breathing practice of pranayama to mean 'trance induced by stopping all breathing.' — James Nestor
A society whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices, is what is called a Church. In all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church. — Emile Durkheim
The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me, is to see something and then translate how I see it. — Ellsworth Kelly
The [chief] characteristic of Hitler's leadership [was] his over-estimation of the power of the will. [To win the war] this will had only to be translated into faith down to the youngest private soldier. — Erich von Manstein
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. — Martha Graham
Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness. — Tom Brady
Photography speaks a universal language that does not need translation, and with an immediacy that the written word lacks. It freezes a moment in time, leaving an indelible image. — Bianca Jagger
It is ludicrous to read the microwave direction on the boxes of food you buy, as each one will have a disclaimer: THIS WILL VARY WITH YOUR MICROWAVE. Loosely translated, this means, You're on your own, Bernice. — Erma Bombeck
Humanism involves far more than the negation of supernaturalism. It requires an affirmative philosophy . . . translated into a life devoted to one's own improvement and the service of all mankind. — Corliss Lamont
Translators have to prove to themselves as to others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just translate well because they have a "flair" for translation, but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to understand various aspects of their work. — Mona Baker
Liberty does not consist in mere declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action. — Woodrow Wilson
We should translate the consensus that vaccines are a global public good into concrete actions, ensure their fair and equitable distribution as well as their accessibility and affordability in developing countries, and thus work together to close the immunization gap. — Xi Jinping
Ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy. — Spiro T. Agnew
The most important investment you can make is in yourself. Very few people get anything like their potential horsepower translated into the actual horsepower of their output in life. Potential exceeds realization for many people...The best asset is your own self. You can become to an enormous degree the person you want to be. — Warren Buffett
In Conclusion
Translation quotes often emphasize the importance of faithfulness to the original text, capturing its essence while adapting it to a different language. They emphasize the skill required to navigate linguistic nuances and convey the intended message accurately. These quotes also recognize that translation is not merely a mechanical task but an art form that requires creativity, sensitivity, and a deep understanding of both the source and target languages.
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Citation
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