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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #lang




If this constant sliding and hiding of meaning were true of conscious life, then we would of course never be able to speak coherently at all. If the whole of language were present to me when I spoke, then I would not be able to articulate anything at all. The ego, or consciousness, can therefore only work by repressing this turbulent activity, provisionally nailing down words on to meanings. Every now and then a word from the unconscious which I do not want insinuates itself into my discourse, and this is the famous Freudian slip of the tongue or parapraxis. But for Lacan all our discourse is in a sense a slip of the tongue: if the process of language is as slippery and ambiguous as he suggests, we can never mean precisely what we say and never say precisely what we mean. Meaning is always in some sense an approximation, a near-miss, a part-failure, mixing non-sense and non-communication into sense and dialogue.


Terry Eagleton


#consciousness #discourse #failure #freudian-slips #lacan

Words can't save you, but they can give you courage.


Marty Rubin


#language #words #courage

My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.


James Thurber


#decline #english #english language #expression #fact

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.


Humphry Davy


#great #instrument #language #only #thinking

English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.


H. Beam Piper


#dating

On the whole I try to keep Modesty and Willie in timeless settings, which is why I avoid all the latest slang and in-words. It won't be long before 'brill' sounds as dated as 'super' does now. [Uncle Happy, 1990]


Peter O'Donnell


#language #pop-culture #setting #slang #time

Users of clichés frequently have more sinister intentions beyond laziness and conventional thinking. Relabelling events often entails subtle changes of meaning. War produces many euphemisms, downplaying or giving verbal respectability to savagery and slaughter.


Patrick Cockburn


#conventional-thinking #euphemism #language #laziness #savagery

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.


John Green


#language #life #writing #death

It's like there are all these languages available, especially in terms of image. Why confine yourself to only English? There's all these languages and possibilities and concepts to speak or communicate with.


William Wiley


#available #communicate #concepts #confine #english

Words travel as swiftly as desire, so it is possible to send a message of love without them.


Laura Esquivel


#communication #love #speech #communication






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