Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Quote of the Day, 11/08/06: Language

Because it's Wednesday, and I like to do wordy things on Wednesday, today's quotes are about language.

James Earl Jones
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

Abigail Adams
We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

Toni Morrison
Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction....

Word-work is sublime... because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference - the way in which we are like no other life.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

I agree -- loved the Toni Morrison quote. I'm glad someone else saw it and appreciated it too!