30 inspiring quotes about language and translation

Eva Mohyrova
Eva Mohyrova
F
For ages, people have been coming up with beautiful quotes in reference to the art of translation and language in general. We've picked 30 of them to share with you. Enjoy!
Reading Time: 3 minutes

How many beautiful quotes about language and translation do you know? It’s likely you’ve come across at least a few. However, it definitely won’t hurt to learn several more, especially if you plan on including them in your marketing strategy.

In this article, we’ve selected a number of inspiring quotes about language and translation. We hope you’ll enjoy them!

 

INSPIRING QUOTES ABOUT LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION

 

All I know about grammar is its infinite power.
— Joan Didion

 

Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.
— Günter Grass

 

The past is always tense, the future perfect.
— Zadie Smith

 


Yuqo quotesA different language is a different vision of life.
— Federico Fellini


 

Words travel worlds. Translators do the driving.
— Anna Rusconi

 

Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.
— Amy Chua

 

Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
— Anthony Burgess

 

All I know about grammar is its infinite power. — Joan Didion

 

Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.
— Italo Calvino

 

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
— William Safire

 

The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry.
— Leonardo Sciascia

 


Yuqo quotesWithout translation, we would be living in provinces bordering on silence.
— George Steiner


 

A translator is a reader, an interpreter and a creator all in one.
— Bijay Kumar Das

 

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
— Nelson Mandela

 

The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.
— Ned Rorem

 

Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes. — Günter Grass

 

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.
— Seth Godin

 

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein

 


Yuqo quotesGrammar, you’re the pickiest noun I know.
— Buffy Andrews


 

Language is wine upon the lips.
— Virginia Woolf

 

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.
— Terry Pratchett

 

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
— Benjamin Lee Whorf

 

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. — William Safire

 

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.
— Jodi Picoult

 

Language comes first. It’s not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven’t got language, you can’t be conscious.
— Alan Moore

 

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
— Richard Bach

 


Yuqo quotesTo learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.
— Chinese Proverb


 

With languages, you are at home anywhere.
— Edmund De Waal

 

To have another language is to possess a second soul.
Charlemagne

 

Writers make national literature, while translators make universal literature.
— Jose Saramago

 

To have another language is to possess a second soul. — Charlemagne

 

The translator is the author’s accomplice.
— Jorge Gonzalez Moore

 

Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?
— Melina Marchetta