Arbitrariness Of Language Quotes & Sayings

Love is the selfishness of two persons. — Antoine De La Sale

I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die. — Colleen Houck

Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways. — Zicheng Hong

Strangers will show you the way

But a true friend will escort you,

to your destination.

1st November, 2006 — Tushar Mangl

A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him. — Leo Tolstoy

My teacher sent me all over the world to talk about meditation - Europe, all over America, Canada. I would drive thousands of miles, travel, all at my own expense, to do this. — Frederick Lenz

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's just the same fraction as those African Americans, almost all of them slaves, who were illiterate just before the Civil War - when severe penalties were in force for anyone who taught a slave to read. Of course there's a degree of arbitrariness about any determination of illiteracy, whether it applies to language or to science. But anything like 95 percent illiteracy is extremely serious. — Carl Sagan

All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual ... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. — G.K. Chesterton

What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing. — Archibald MacLeish

The Beatitudes reveal the profile of the Christian, the character of the one who has had a life-changing encounter with the grace of God. In light of God's overwhelming goodness, the sinner sees his own poverty of spirit and mourns not only for his own sin but also for the spiritual sickness of the world. Therefore, he grows meek and longs for all the more earnestly for true righteousness. Therefore, he practices mercy and enjoys purity and makes peace. Therefore, he gladly endures persecution for the sake of Jesus. — R. W. Glenn

Beyond the town, darker than dark, King Haggard's castle teetered like a lunatic on stilts ... — Peter S. Beagle

Every language has a grammar, a set of rules that govern usage and meaning, and literary language is no different. It's all more or less arbitrary of course, just like language itself. — Thomas C. Foster

Contemporary poetry ... tries to transform the sign back into meaning:
its ideal, ultimately, would be to reach not the meaning of words, but the
meaning of things themselves. This is why it clouds the language, increases
as much as it can the abstractness of the concept and the arbitrariness
of the sign and stretches to the limit the link between signifier and signified. — Roland Barthes

Trumbo was that, certainly: a prodigy of the will. He hung in there - survived, prevailed, even triumphed on a couple of occasions. Ultimately, that is why he is worth our attention. — Bruce Cook

I find it easy to spot a depressive. The illness is scrawled across them like graffiti. — Sally Brampton

Often I am struck in amazement about a word: I suddenly realize that the complete arbitrariness of our language is but a part of the arbitrariness of our own world in general. — Christian Morgenstern