To a teacher of language there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.

Language is the archives of history.

A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case.

Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it's as fundamental a problem as getting enough to eat or a place to sleep.

Russian is a very deceptive language, because it looks easy at first: it's like setting out for a gentle stroll and realizing that you've committed yourself to scaling Himalayan peaks.

Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects.

Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise-that which is common to you, me and everybody.