Beautiful English Language Quotes & Sayings

English is a beautiful language, a remarkably precise language with a million words to choose from to deliver your exact shade of meaning. — Laura Fraser

Wamblecropt is the most exquisite word in the English language. Say it. Each syllable is intolerably beautiful. — Mark Forsyth

I've learned to live simply, wisely
I've learned to live simply, wisely,
To look at the sky and pray to God,
And to take long walks before evening
To wear out this useless anxiety.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
And the yellow-red clusters of rowan nod,
I compose happy verses
About mortal life, mortal and beautiful life.
I return. The fluffy cat
Licks my palm and sweetly purrs.
And on the turret of the sawmill by the lake
A bright flame flares.
The quiet is cut, occasionally,
By the cry of a stork landing on the roof.
And if you were to knock at my door,
It seems to me I wouldn't even hear.
(English version by Judith Hemschemeyer
Original Language Russian) — Anna Akhmatova

I read the Bible to myself; I'll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. — Maya Angelou

The English language is direct, unapologetic, and wonderfully amoral. Italian has a beautiful sound, but you cannot help but feel that you are always dealing with ghosts from the past and the looming dark presence of the Vatican. — Chiara Barzini

May cause drowsiness.' - the most beautiful words in the English language. Once it was 'do you have a t-shirt I can borrow?' Now it's 'may cause drowsiness. — David Nicholls

I really want to adopt a child ... I want to be called 'Mom.' It really is the most beautiful word in the English language. — Patti Stanger

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. — Elise Boulding

English dialogue is the best in the world. So dry and direct. The Italian language is beautiful, but it is too literary. — Bernardo Bertolucci

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. — Henry James

The word 'bollocks' is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of inevitable disaster. And — Ben Aaronovitch

And it occurred to me, standing there, just breathing with her, quiet settling around us, that those might be the three most beautiful words in the English language. We have time. — Ransom Riggs

Joyce's writing in Dubliners contains some of the most unshowily beautiful sentences in the English language. I learned from him that if you write a good, clean line of English, you can get under a reader's skin. The reader won't even know why, but there you are. Didion, Berger, the many others I mentioned above, and many, many poets I haven't mentioned. Writers of this calibre are the moving targets the rest of us are always chasing. — Teju Cole

The most beautiful words in the English language are not 'I love you', but 'It's benign'. — Woody Allen

Baseball. If there's a more beautiful word in the English language. I have yet to hear it ... baseball has served as such a powerful link between Dad and me, and later between me and my son. — Tim Russert

When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child. — H.L. Mencken

There's no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be. — Harper Lee

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor Aeschylus, nor Virgil even, works as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equaled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who never knew them. — Henry David Thoreau

I have always felt cookbooks were fiction and the most beautiful words in the English language were 'room service. — Erma Bombeck

I think yes is the most beautiful and necessary word in the English language. — Sally Potter

Somebody once said that the Irish derived the greatest benefit from the English language. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter, they fling it at the sky like paint pots full of rainbow colors. — Malachy McCourt

With the requests of some he complied, and has published a discourse, delivered before the Society for recovering drowned persons, which may be justly pronounced one of the most beautiful and interesting sermons in the English language. — John Strachan

The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed. — Dorothy Parker

The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'. — John McCarthy