Kato Lomb Quotes & Sayings

Language is present in a piece of writing like the sea in a single drop. — Kato Lomb

My view is that knowing languages is part of the process of becoming a cultured person. — Kato Lomb

[S]elf-assurance, motivation, and a good method play a much more important role in language learning than the vague concept of innate ability, and that dealing with languages is not only an effective and joyful means of developing human relationships, but also of preserving one's mental capacity and spiritual balance. — Kato Lomb

The beauty of a language is, generally judged by its soft or rigid, melodious or harsh, ring. Other aspects, such as the flexibility of derivation, play hardly any role in grading. Were it the case, Russian would certainly be placed on the winner's stand. It would rank first in plasticity. — Kato Lomb

I mention the library only as a last resort. I recommend buying your own books... They can be spiced with underlines, question marks, and exclamation points; they can be thumbed and dog-eared, plucked to their essential core, and annotated so that they become a mirror of yourself. — Kato Lomb

Knowledge - like a nail - is made load-bearing by being driven in. If it's not driven deep enough, it will break when any weight is put upon it. — Kato Lomb

Language is the only thing worth knowing even poorly. — Kato Lomb

To look it at another way, surely there are many unfortunate people who have needed to undergo multiple stomach surgeries. Yet no one would hand a scalpel over to them and ask them to perform the same surgery they received on another person, simply because they themselves had undergone it so often. — Kato Lomb

A book can be pocketed and discarded, scrawled and torn into pages, lost and bought again. It can be dragged out from a suitcase, opened in front of you when having a snack, revived at the moment of waking, and skimmed through once again before falling asleep. It needs no notice by phone if you can't attend the appointment fixed in the timetable. It won't get mad if awakened from its slumber during your sleepless nights. Its message can be swallowed whole or chewed into tiny pieces. Its content lures you for intellectual Why and What adventures and it satisfies your spirit of adventure. You can get bored of it - but it won't ever get bored of you. — Kato Lomb

In classes, the more lively and uninhibited ones will "suck away the air" from those with a more passive nature, despite all the efforts of the teacher. It is also a special danger in large groups that you will hear your fellow students' bad pronunciation more than the teacher's perfected speech. — Kato Lomb

Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. — Kato Lomb

A complicated structure? Undoubtedly. But after all, the cathedral of Milan is complicated too, and you still look at it with awe. — Kato Lomb

[B]ooks, which can be consulted at any time, questioned again and again, and read into scraps, cannot be rivaled as a language-learning tool. — Kato Lomb

[R]epetition is as an essential element of language learning as a knife is to a lathe or fuel is to an internal combustion engine. — Kato Lomb

Aside from mastery in the fine arts, success in learning anything is the result of genuine interest and amount of energy dedicated to it. — Kato Lomb

[S]tudy has never been a burden for me but always an inexhaustible source of joy. — Kato Lomb

The spread of languages shouldn't imply the decay of national languages. There are so many literary and historical memories, so many joys and sorrows of the past linked to them that it is an obligation for all of us to guard their present and future. — Kato Lomb

Language is present in a piece of work like the sea in a single drop. — Kato Lomb

[T]he time spent on language learning is lost unless it reaches a certain - daily and weekly - concentration. — Kato Lomb

There is as little likelihood of squeezing an adult into the intellectual framework of their childhood as there is into their first pair of pajamas. — Kato Lomb

When he is dissected after his death," a disrespectful interpreter said of a foreign dignitary, "a million predicates will be found in his stomach: those he swallowed in the past decades without saying them. — Kato Lomb

He who knows other languages feels even closer to his own language. — Kato Lomb

One should connect language learning with either work or leisure. And not at the expense of them but to supplement them. — Kato Lomb

My motivation for learning Japanese was to translate a chemical patent, a job that I had heroically (i.e., rashly) taken on. — Kato Lomb

Whenever I read statistical reports, I try to imagine my unfortunate contemporary, the Average Person, who, according to these reports, has 0.66 children, 0.032 cars, and 0.046 TVs. — Kato Lomb

At first, we should read with a blitheness practically bordering on superficiality; later on, with a conscientiousness close to distrust. — Kato Lomb

... I never looked for or found national differences in the various places of the world, only common features - eternal human nature. — Kato Lomb

I heard from a swimming coach that how soon children learn to swim depends on how much they trust themselves and the surrounding world. I am convinced that this (self) confidence is the precondition of success in all intellectual activity. It may even have a greater role than believed in the least understood human talent: creativity, that is, artistic creation and scientific discovery. — Kato Lomb

It is a frequently cited fact that English has two sets of words for farm animals and their corresponding meats. The living animals are expressed with words of Germanic origin-calf (German 'Kalb'), swine (G. 'Schwein'), and ox (G. 'Ochse')-because the servants who guarded them were the conquered Anglo-Saxons. The names of the meats are of Romance origin-veal (French 'veau'), pork (F. 'porc') and beef (F. 'boeuf')-because those who enjoyed them were the conquering Norman masters. — Kato Lomb

I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina. — Kato Lomb