Linguist Quotes

It is generally believed that scientific talent reveals itself in early youth. [...] This was certainly not my case. I somehow slid into my scientific profession. My mother wished for me to become a physician, just like my father. [...] I myself wanted to be a lawyer, defender of the unjustly accused. But my career is the result of political circumstances, academic possibilities, and lucky accidents.

If we can't be a great nation in population we can be a great nation in spirit!

This period is characterized by a diversity of textual transmissions undreamed of two decades ago.

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein

When writing a poem, I feel like I'm translating. And when I'm translating, I feel like I'm writing.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

God hath made three beautiful things, Birds, and women, and flowers; And he on earth who happy would be Must look with love on all the three; But chiefly, in bright summer hours, He is wise who loves the flowers, And roams the fields with me.

John Stuart Blackie

We shall work not on the macrocosmic scale of the literary forms, but on the microcosmic scale of the lexical forms.

However, a rich print environment helps only when more reading is done.

Stephen Krashen

Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.

.. a woman can be a woman and a true one without having all her time engrossed by dress and society.

M. Carey Thomas

Big dictionaries are nothing but storerooms with infrequently visited and dusty corners.

Richard W. Bailey

Your beauty was the first that won the place,
And scaled the walls of my undaunted heart,
Which, captive now, pines in a caitive case,
Unkindly met with rigour for desert;–
Yet not the less your servant shall abide,
In spite of rude repulse or silent pride.

Yesterday one has wished, to-day one attains the madly longed-for object, and to-morrow one will blush to think that one ever desired it.

While we were discussing what could make one happy, I said to him: Sanitas sanitatum et omnia sanitas [Health of healths and everything is health].

Language can…be compared with a sheet of paper: thought is the front and sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time.

Ferdinand de Saussure

There is no absolute virtue in iambic pentameter as such.. however well they may be done. There is no immediate virtue to rhythm even. These things are merely a means to an end.

The nomadic Semite... roves as a herdsman, partaking of Allah's hospitality.

Cyrus H. Gordon

Pale disease Shall linger by thy side, and thou shalt know Eternal autumn to thy day of death.

The medicine of Sushruta is considerably older than the ninth century; and the grammar of Panini probably precedes Christianity.

My analysis was directed toward purely physical conditions, such as defective wiring, presence of lack of air spaces between metal flues and woodwork, etc., and the results were presented in these terms.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

There are only two reasons for buying a book, after all. Either we intend to read it, in which case most of us find a printed version preferable, or we don't intend to read it, in which case a printed version is absolutely essential.

Geoffrey Nunberg

Who wants to be a linguist must apply consistently linguistic criteria, not tinkering to comply with policy needs, creating the illusion that one stands still in the field of science.

Snježana Kordić

A physical system is just that: a physical system. What is systematized is matter itself, and the processes in which the system is realized are also material. But a biological system is more complex: it is both biological and physical — it is matter with the added component of life; and a social system is more complex still: it is physical, and biological, with the added component of social order, or value. … A semiotic system is still one step further in complexity: it is physical, and biological, and social —and also semiotic: what is being systematized is meaning. In evolutionary terms, it is a system of the fourth order of complexity

Michael Halliday

We are not so naive as some think of us; we do not believe that a neutral base will turn men into angels; we know quite well that the people who are evil will still be evil; but we believe that communication and relationships based on a neutral base will at least do away with the great mass of brutality and crimes which are caused not by ill will, but simply by mutual misunderstandings and impositions.

Ludoviko Lazaro Zamenhof

If you give yourself that short little moment of thinking, then you cannot miss it.