Monolingual Quotes & Sayings

To remain monolingual reduces the mind to the confines of a tramline. — Sybille Bedford

The problem is I'm a perfectionist, so the producer might say he's happy with my vocal take but I'll say, 'No, it can be better.' I'll do it again and again until I feel I've got the truth out of a song. — Nicole Scherzinger

All conservatives are bilingual we have to be. We speak both liberal and conservative. But liberals are monolingual - they don't have to be anything else. They speak liberal, and are completely ignorant of the conservative tongue. — John Podhoretz

With the United States in slow long-term decline, how will that affect the position of English? And where will all that leave monolingual Britain? Our political leaders like to boast about how global Britain is, but when it comes to languages, it is near the bottom of the global league, together with another island state, Japan. — Martin Jacques

Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgement for years to come, you may begin to hope. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work. — Terry Gilliam

There are very few places in the world where you have to learn a language with no language in common. It's called a monolingual field situation. — Daniel Everett

We live in a free country. While patriotism is important, liberty of thought and liberty of expression are even more important. — James Green

He meets my gaze again, his eyes raw and heated, his breaths ragged. "This has never been about gratitude, Catherine."
I'm having a hard time breathing.
"Tell me you believe me. — K.A. Tucker

He shouldn't have let himself be caged in here, walled off from freedom. But what does freedom mean any more? And who had caged him and walled him off? He'd done it himself. So many small choices. — Margaret Atwood

Our restaurant fostered a sense of camaraderie in a number of ways besides sharing the same nickname of 'chef.' Initially, we bonded through training. Once we opened, we worked in teams each night, meaning that we not only knew our colleagues well, we depended on them. Most importantly, we all had 'family meal' together every night, just like President Bush recommended to all families so that their children would have good values and grow up to be gun-toting, pro-life, pro-death, gas-guzzling, warmongering, monolingual, homophobic, wiretapped, Bible-thumping, genetically engineered, stem-cell harboring, abstinent creationists. Oops, I think I just lost all of my red state readers. To make up for it, I'll let you lose my ballot. — Phoebe Damrosch

In the context of fiercely monolingual dominant cultures like that of the United States, code-switching lays claim to a form of cultural power: the power to own but not be owned by the dominant language...Code-switching is a rich source of wit, humour, puns, word play, and games of rhythm and rhyme. — Mary Louise Pratt

Of the 193 recognized countries in the world, only politically isolated North Korea is considered monolingual. — Nataly Kelly

Whoever finds that they're not prepared to give their all should draw the inescapable conclusion from that and stop. — Jean-Christophe Maillot

I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages at my command, different styles, different ways of talking, which do involve different parameter settings. — Noam Chomsky

Increasing complexity on its own is not, however, the ultimate goal or end-product of these evolutionary processes. Evolution results in better answers, not necessarily more complicated ones. Sometimes a superior solution is a simpler one. — Ray Kurzweil

The hyperfast-moving, wired-up, reengineered, quality-obsessed organization will succeed or fail on the strength of the trust that its managers place in the folks working on the front line. — Tom Peters

..technological breakthroughs, such as the Internet, have made international communications not just possible but commonplace. However, for most Americans, these international conversations are viable only if the other side speaks English. In this new international era, Americans find themselves locked in a monolingual society. How strange that, instead of viewing those who speak other languages as welcome assets to our nation, some seem eager to erase linguistic diversity. — David Miller Sadker

When something hurts them, they weep.
By night, they rest, they sleep — Christina Engela

I realize that it's like spices in the kitchen. I need that turmeric. I'm sorry, but cinnamon isn't going to substitute . I feel that I can teach my listener about a new word they can use too. "Well, what words are part of my own community, even if I'm monolingual, that I'm not allowing myself to use in a public sphere?" — Sandra Cisneros

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting "Vanity," thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure. — John Berger

I suspected learning a language would be both useful and enjoyable (I love memorising lists of things), and would get rid of the embarrassment of being monolingual at 21. I'd been obsessed with reading for as long as I could remember, the only thing I'd ever thought I might want to be was a writer, but I was much better at crafting sentences than at stringing plots together. — Deborah Smith

The chicken "understands" the dog, the dog can interpret the dove's cooing, the insect can fathom the lowing of the cow, and no matter how faraway the eagle may be, the cow can tell where it is. All audible animal messages are indifferently understood by all animals even though each one is monolingual at most. Could there be any more remarkable lesson in and example of understanding others without loss of personality? Most impenetrable to the thoughts of others are those who have no personal language. Most intolerant people hail from the land of self-ignorance. — Malcolm De Chazal