Translations Quotes & Sayings

A satisfactory translation is not always possible, but a good translator is never satisfied with it. It can usually be improved. (Newmark) — Peter Newmark

I don't know what exactly the translation is but when we do consume something now, something else has to give at some point. — Dan Ariely

And after I started working for the Bureau, most of my translation duties included translations of documents and investigations that actually started way before 9/11. — Sibel Edmonds

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. — Ezra Pound

Time reveals all translation to be paraphrase. — Richard Howard

Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth's four volume Haiku became especially popular at this time [1950's] because his translations were based on the assumption that the haiku was the poetic expression of Zen. Not surprisingly, his books attracted the attention of the Beat school, most notably writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, all of whom had a prior interest in Zen. — Reginald Horace Blyth

Scholarly translations of the Tao Te Ching as a manual for rulers use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist "sage," his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for twenty-five hundred years. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We have then, in the first part of The Faerie Queene, four of the seven deadly sins depicted in the more important passages of the four several books; those sins being much more elaborately and powerfully represented than the virtues, which are opposed to them, and which are personified in the titular heroes of the respective books. The alteration which made these personified virtues the centre each of a book was probably part of the reconstruction on the basis of Aristotle Ethics.
The nature of the debt to Aristotle suggests that Spenser did not borrow directly from the Greek, but by way of modern translations. — Janet Spens

One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time. — Tom Stoppard

. . . the mind always has logic; it might not be obvious logic, but the mind has its reasons for connecting two seemingly unlike notions. -Carol Muske, Translations: Idea to Image — Robin Behn

Opens up a whole new view of Beckett. The strong mutual attraction between Beckett and Cunard may help explain the leftist political views he expressed both in these superb and long-neglected translations for Negro and elsewhere in his work. — Barney Rosset

I love these words that just can't be translated from language to language. They seem dignified, grounded, battling against the imperialism of reality. — Olivier Magny

the best of Cervantes is untranslatable, and this undeniable fact is in itself an incentive [for one and all] to learn Spanish. — Aubrey F.G. Bell

Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties. — Voltaire

That's the problem with translations," she added sadly. "You can never quite reproduce the flavor of the original. — Emily Croy Barker

Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. — Walter Benjamin

I do not hesitate to read. all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable-any real insight or broad human sentiment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one really knew the sciences except the Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, by reason of his length of life and experience, as well as of his studiousness and zeal. He knew mathematics and perspective, and there was nothing which he was unable to know; and at the same time he was sufficiently acquainted with languages to be able to understand the saints and the philosophers and the wise men of antiquity but his knowledge of languages was not such as to enable him to effect translations until the latter portion of his life ... — Roger Bacon

The light was leaving in the west it was blue The children's laughter sang and skipping just like the stones they threw the voices echoed across the way its getting late It was just another night with the sun set and the moon rise not so far behind to give us just enough light to lay down underneath the stars listen to papas translations of the stories across the sky we drew our own constellations — Jack Johnson

Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something. The Arabs are the only ones who've figured this out. They have the sense to call non-Arabic versions of the Criterion interpretations, not translations. — G. Willow Wilson

How does newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings? Can men fly? — Salman Rushdie

In art as in life, some things need no translation. — Paula Vogel

Does it not seem strange that the generation with the most advanced technology and the easiest-to-read Bible translations is the weakest generation of Christians in the history of our country? Church attendance has never been lower, and the Christian influence in our culture never weaker. — A.W. Tozer

There were no oceans on Oasis, no large bodies of water, and presumably no fish.
He wondered whether this would cause comprehension problems when it came to certain crucial fish-related Bible stories. There were so many of those: Jonah and the whale, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, the Galilean disciples being fishermen, the whole 'fishers of men' analogy . . . the bit in Matthew 13 about the kingdom of heaven being like a net cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind . . . Even in the opening chapter of Genesis, the first animals God made were sea creatures. How much of the Bible would he have to give up as untranslatable? — Michel Faber

Changing words isn't so hard. Recognizing a particular sound, swapping it for another - that was easy even for your ancestors. Reading what happens in your head and the heads of all the beings around you, now that is difficult. Finding equivalents in one culture for the basic concepts of another - that is really difficult. I say the word vegetable and the translator tells you something like 'edible moss'. So, yes, it's a miracle, but it's a dangerous miracle. It makes you think you understand beasts and you never do. When it comes down to it, you can't even understand your own species. — Peadar O'Guilin

Poetry is what is gained in translation. — Joseph Brodsky

I've always like Medieval literature. As a young girl I read mythologies and Norse legends, that sort of thing. I loved Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While I was studying at Middle Tennessee State University for doctoral program I came in contact with more ancient literature. I examined older literature more seriously which intrigued and fascinated me very much; I was drawn to it.
For the book I used all my own translations of Beowulf from my doctorate. Culture is contained in language, if you study a language you'll see bits of culture, because the words are different and you see into the lives of the people. The Anglo-Saxon language touched me very deeply. Some of it is the heroic. Some of it is the melancholy. But there is also honor. You uphold, you fight to the death. Even if you watch movies, like Marvel comic book movies, like Thor: you want the great ones to win. Its even better if they have a fault. But you want the heroic character to win. — Deborah A. Higgens

Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers. — Jorge Luis Borges

Stephen D'Evelyn, a scholar working primarily on Hildegard's Symphonia, was a teaching assistant in my 2005 course on "Hildegard and the Gospels" and a valuable discussion partner for the translations we looked at in class. — Beverly Mayne Kienzle

The best value translations of the Poetic Edda are by Hollander from Texas Uni Press, or by Larrington of Oxford Uni Press. — Sweyn Plowright

Regarding R. H. Blyth: The first book in English based on the saijiki is R. H. Blyth's Haiku, published in four volumes from 1949 to 1952. After the first, background volume, the remaining three consist of a collection of Japanese haiku with translations, all organized by season, and within the seasons by traditional categories and about three hundred seasonal topics. — Reginald Horace Blyth

Scriptural determinism" sounds like an arcane academic paradigm, but it is deployed by nonacademics in a consequential way. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as Americans tried to fathom the forces at work, sales of several kinds of books rose. Some people bought books about Islam, some bought books about the recent history of the Middle East, and some bought translations of the Koran. And of course some bought more than one kind of book. But people who bought only translations of the Koran were showing signs of scriptural determinism. They seemed to think that you could understand the terrorists' motivation simply by reading their ancient scriptures - just search the Koran for passages advocating violence against infidels and, having succeeded, end the analysis, content that you'd found the essential cause of 9/11. — Robert Wright

I'm told that a couple of my Russian translations are just plain terrible, though, and there may be others. — Charles Stross

In the evening they went to say good-bye to Bilbo. 'Well, if you must go, you must,' he said. 'I am sorry. I shall miss you. It is nice just to know that you are about the place. But I am getting very sleepy.' Then he gave Frodo his mithril-coat and Sting, forgetting that he had already done so; and he gave him also three books of lore that he had made at various times, written in his spidery hand, and labelled on their red backs: Translations from the Elvish, by B. B. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me'. — Christopher Hitchens

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. — Voltaire

I think of translations as passing some scholarly smell test: you can read the words of the translation and be reasonably sure of what the words are in the original. — Christian Wiman

I believe that there are people who think as I do, who have thought as I do, who will think as I do. There are those who will live, unconscious of me, but continuing my attitude, so to speak, as I continue, unknowingly, the similar attitude of those before me. I could write and write. All it takes is a motion of the hand in response to a brain impulse, trained from childhood to record in our own American brand of hieroglyphics the translations of external stimuli. How much of my brain is wilfully my own? How much is not a rubber stamp of what I have read and heard and lived? Sure, I make a sort of synthesis of what I come across, but that is all that differentiates me from another person? - - - That I have banged into and assimilated various things? That my environment and a chance combination of genes got me where I am? — Sylvia Plath

Other translations may engage the mind, but the King James Version is the Bible of the heart. — David Norton

Any utterance of more than trivial length has no one translation; all utterances have innumerably many acceptable translations — David Bellos

The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight translations from the German. — Gore Vidal

The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture's patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language's rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people's gestures and movements. I — Liu Cixin

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets. — Baltasar Gracian

Overly literal translations, far from being faithful, actually distort meaning by obscuring sense. — Ken Liu

She reflected that if anything was going to be resolved, it would be resolved in the car. Afterward she would no longer have the strength. She would finally abandon herself, without remorse, to her translations, to the books whose pages she dissected by day and night, to earn her living and fill the holes dug by time. — Paolo Giordano

I mainly wanted non-english writing poets, because I loved the idea that I was translating translations. — Simone Muench

Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph. — Robert Heinecken

Preface WITH THE ADVENT OF multiple modern English translations of the Bible being published over the last fifty years, Christians have come to realize that there can be a wide range of meanings and renderings of various words from the Bible in the original language. As a Hebrew teacher and student of ancient languages one of the most common questions I get is, "What is the best translation?" This is usually followed by the question, "Which translation is the closest to the original Biblical language?" The answer I give to both questions is, "All of them." With few exceptions, every translation and paraphrase of the Bible is done with much scholarship and prayer by the translators. Every translator is convinced that he or she has presented the best renderings for each word and firmly believes they have given the rendering that is closest to the original language. So we now ask the question as to why there are — Chaim Bentorah

Translation is so important. The new American translations of the Bible sound like a Judith Krantz novel. — Rabih Alameddine

Meaning can be usually be approximated, but often by sacrificing style. When I review my translations into Spanish, that's what I'm most concerned with, reading the sentences aloud in Spanish to make sure they sound the way I want them to. To be honest, I much prefer being translated into Greek or Japanese; in those cases, you have no way of being involved, and no pressure. — Daniel Alarcon

The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. — Henry David Thoreau

I began writing poems when I was about eight, with a heavy assist from my mother. She read me Arthur Waley's translations and Whitman and Robinson Jeffers, who have been lifelong influences on me. My father read Keats to me, and then he read more Keats while I was lying on the sofa struggling with asthma. — Carolyn Kizer

I often visit Maria Tatar's 'The Grimm Reader' for a cold dose of courage. Her translations come from the Brothers Grimm, whose now-famous collection of 'Kinder- und Hausmarchen' ('Children's and Household Tales') was first published in 1812. The book was not intended for young readers. — Kate Bernheimer

Other people spoke, and I tried to keep up with the translations. All the stories were about Dimitri's kindness and strength of character. Even when not out battling the undead, Dimitri had always been there to help those who needed it. Almost everyone could recall sometime that Dimitri had stepped up to help others, going out of his way to do what was right, even in situations that could put him at risk. That was no surprise to me. Dimitri always did the right thing.
And it was that attitude that had made me love him so much. I had a similar nature. I too rushed in when others needed me, sometimes when I shouldn't have. Others called me crazy for it, but Dimitri had understood. He'd always understood me, and part of what we'd worked on was how to temper that impulsive need to run into danger with reason and calculation. I had a feeling no one else in this world would ever understand me like he did. — Richelle Mead

Translation is the circulatory system of the world's literatures — Susan Sontag

The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book. — Dan Brown

I was nearly 40 when I published my first book. I was a slow starter - or rather, I was slow to gather my work together, though I had published translations, mainly of the Italian poet Montale, by then. — Jonathan Galassi

What's wonderful is to read the different translations - some done in 1600 and some in 1900 - of the same passage. It's fascinating to watch the same tale repeated in such a different way by two different centuries. — Martin Cruz Smith

To find not only that this bedlam of color was true but that the pictures were pale and inaccurate translations, was to me startling. I can't even imagine the forest colors when I am not seeing them. I wondered whether constant association could cause inattention, and asked a native New Hampshire woman about it. She said that autumn never failed to amaze her; to elate. 'It is a glory,' she said, 'and can't be remembered, so that it always comes as a surprise. — John Steinbeck

The tension between autonomy and expertise had been, at a basic level, fundamental to the Protestant experience itself from the Reformation forward, as the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, increasing literacy, and vernacular translations of the Bible undermined the clerical caste's monopoly on spiritual authority. In the twentieth-century United States, professional specialization, the Progressive emphasis on technical expertise, and simply the ever more complex nature of modern urban life pulled readers toward greater reliance on literary guidance, while the logic of consumerism, rooted in the all-powerful choice to buy or not to buy, further reinforced the notion of reader autonomy. — Matthew Hedstrom

It was real Cheyenne. I would get the translations the night before, but it was very difficult because it was not like any other language you would be familiar with. — Joe Lando

There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation. — Walter Benjamin

Regarding R. H. Blyth: For translations, the best books are still those by R. H. Blyth ... — Reginald Horace Blyth

It is man and not the Bible that needs correcting. Greater and more careful scholarship has shown that apparent contradictions were caused by incorrect translations, rather than divine inconsistencies. — Billy Graham

Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth. — D.T. Suzuki

There aren't really rules for painting, but there's certain facts and fictions about painting. Part of what I do is document another surface and sort of translate it. They're like translations, and then part of it is fiction, which is invention. — Vija Celmins

Regarding the age of the universe, many will wonder if this rules out the Biblical description of creation, as most Bible translations state in the book of Genesis that the universe was made in six days. Now, granted, it is possible that God made the universe in six literal days, and built the appearance of old age into it. But notice that the Hebrew word "yom", which is typically translated as "day" in the book of Genesis, can actually also mean "long period of time". In addition, the words "ereb" and "boqer", which are commonly translated as "evening" and "morning", can also mean "ending" and "beginning". Also, according to the fourth chapter of the book of Hebrews in the Bible, we are still in the seventh "yom", so obviously some days are much longer than 24 hours. — Stephen Williams

In early 2010, we launched our first localized version of 'WhatsApp' for iPhone. It included Spanish and German language translations, to name a couple. — Brian Acton

I would recognise myself in each of his translations and he would feel betrayed and annoyed whenever I didn't write something the way he would have. A part of me died with him, a part of him lives with me. — Eduardo Galeano

I would suggest that what the translator has to give up is the temptation to translate history by making sense of it, that is, by using an apologetic or apocalyptic discourse. What the translator fails to do is to erase the body, to erase the murder of the original. — Shoshana Felman

It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language. — Brian Friel

Razieh had an amazing capacity for beauty. She said, You know, all my life I have lived in
poverty. I had to steal books and sneak into movie houses-but, God, I loved those books! I don't think any rich kid has ever cherished Rebecca or Gone with the Wind the way I did when I borrowed the translations from houses where my mother worked. — Azar Nafisi

There are several reasons why a study of the French military experience in Algeria in this present work is necessary. The entire doctrinal system contained within Casey's Infantry Tactics and Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics originated with the French infantry's experiences in North Africa, and these were but translations of a work utilized by French chasseurs and Zouaves. — Brent Nosworthy

Poetry cannot be translation — Samuel Johnson

When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. 'It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]' (Gen. 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is 'notoriously difficult to translate.' The various attempts we have in English are "helper" or "companion" or the notorious "help meet." Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat ... disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing "One day I shall be a help meet?" Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it "sustainer beside him"
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately. — Stasi Eldredge

So, Nietzsche said, "Life is meaningless, but have courage anyway." Jesus also called His people to be courageous in the face of difficulty, adversity, and hostility, but He did not call them to a groundless courage. As we know, Jesus told His disciples, "Take heart" (John 16:33), or, as some translations put it, "Be of good cheer." However, He did not simply tell them to take heart for the sake of taking heart. He gave them a reason why they ought to have a sense of confidence and assurance for the Christian life. He said, "Take heart; I have overcome the world. — R.C. Sproul

I wrote the first draft of 'Madame Bovary' without studying the previous translations, although I gathered them and took the occasional peek. — Lydia Davis

He was keen to use English as well as French in daily conversation, writing letters in English and commissioning translations of French and Latin books. — Ian Mortimer

Of course we may have any number of translations of a given text - the more the better, really. — Lydia Davis

I read the different translations of the Bible they had and really just dove into it, almost so I could prove it all right. — Christian Hosoi

Increasingly she's finding it harder to tell the 'real' NYC from translations like Zigotisopolis ... as if she keeps getting caught in a vortex taking her farther back in time into the virtual world. Certainly unforeseen in the original business plan, there arises now a possibility that DeepArcher is about to overflow out into the perilous gulf between screen and face. — Thomas Pynchon

The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations have caught meanings in their net, but prosily, letting the beauty slip through. And in poetry, beauty is no ornament; it is the meaning. It is the truth. We have that on good authority. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Nowadays we are fond of literal translations ... That would have seemed a crime to translators in ages past ... They wanted to prove that the vernacular was as capable of a great poem as the original. — Jorge Luis Borges

There are nine different words in Maya for the color blue...but just three Spanish translations, leaving six butterflies that can be seen only by the Maya, proving beyond doubt that when a language dies, six butterflies disappear from the consciousness of the earth. — Earl Shorris

Mala hierba nunca muere. (Translations: Weeds never die. Bad grass never dies.) — Anonymous

Through the centuries, tens of thousands of copies and thousands of translations have been made (transmission), which did introduce minute errors. Because there is an abundance of existing ancient Old Testament and New Testament manuscripts, however, the exacting science of textual criticism has been able to reclaim the content of the original writings (revelation and inspiration) to the extreme degree of 99.99 percent, with the remaining one-hundredth of one percent having no effect on its content (preservation). — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Had I known that coffee could taste so good, I would have gotten drunk on it every day. — Rabih Alameddine

With the myriad of new Bible translations on the market today, few stand out. The ESV is one of the few, and surpasses the others in its simple yet elegant style. In many respects the ESV has accomplished in the 21st century what the KJV accomplished in the 17th: a trustworthy, literary Bible that is suitable for daily reading, memorizing, and preaching. — Daniel B. Wallace

Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original. — Lydia Davis

The translation called good has original value as a work of art. — Benedetto Croce

Pictures rule, but words define, explain, express, direct, and hold together our thoughts and what we know. — Don Watson

To be sure, all translation is interpretation. ... Be that as it may, functional-equivalence translations, which presume that ambiguity, multivalence, and contradiction are by definition not part of the Bible, take far more creative and interpretive license than formal ones in eradicating those features. In so doing, they too often try to make the Bible into something it's not. — Timothy Beal

I'm not a best-seller, but through translations, I've accumulated some money. — Manuel Puig

Gaiaguys are free to think for themselves, and since their translations of our texts - even if these are of a preliminary nature - are sought for by many people, we see no reason for withdrawing our permission. — Billy Meier

A minute passes as we enter Little Tokyo. It's kind of similar to what you see in the movies, with a lot of signs in different languages with "engrish" translations underneath and those big red gates with the curved wood on top, whatever they're called. The passing people on the street are, understandably, largely of Asian descent.
... I get a couple looks, but I suspect it's 'cause my hair is a variety of shades not seen outside of an anime. — Vaughn R. Demont

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech or print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God. — Thomas Paine

Your fine church has not contented itself with cutting off from the Scripture entire books, chapters, sentences and words, but what it has not dared to cut off altogether it has corrupted and violated by its translations. In order that the sectaries of this age may altogether pervert this first and most holy rule of our faith, they have not been satisfied with shortening it or with getting rid of so many beautiful parts, but they have turned and turned it about, each one as he chose, and instead of adjusting their ideas by this rule they have adopted it to the square of their own greater or less sufficiency. — Francis De Sales

It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand. — Fredrik Bajer

These are crystalline - oftentimes incandescent - translations of Juarroz's powerful metaphysical poems where eternity and silence jut up against a world where "writing infects the landscape" and there are "more letters than leaves" - The kind of match one hopes for where both the translator and the poet are in luck; new poems which don't leak and yet old poems in which the original passion shines. — Jorie Graham

Ah, Houellebecq. I've only read him in English translations so I'm sure I'm not getting the full greatness of his work, but golly, he writes better sex scenes than anyone else alive. — Chuck Palahniuk