Translations Language Quotes & Sayings

Modern political systems are labeled liberal democracies because they unite two disparate principles. Liberalism is based on a rule of law that maintains a level playing field for all citizens, particularly the right to private property, which is critical for economic growth and prosperity. The democratic part, political choice, is the enforcer of communal choices and accountable to the citizenry as a whole. Over the past few years, we've witnessed revolts around the world of the democratic part of this equation against the liberal one. — Francis Fukuyama

If you are not fully in the game you are playing, however, you are not truly playing it. — J.M. Coetzee

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

Because that's bullshit. Okay, maybe the Las Vegas thing was our fault, well mostly Uncle Jared's and Jason's fault, but it was supposed to be a twenty-four hour buffet," he explained. "And that Disneyworld thing," he shook his head in disgust, "was all a simple misunderstanding. There was no need to get the police involved," he said on a sniff. — R.L. Mathewson

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

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

God delivers over to men his visible will in events, an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue. Men immediately make translations of it; translations hasty, incorrect, full of errors, of gaps, and of nonsense. Very few minds comprehend the divine language. The most sagacious, the calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with their text, the task has long been completed; there are already twenty translations on the public place. From each remaining springs a party, and from each misinterpretation a faction; and each party thinks that it alone has the true text, and each faction thinks that it possesses the light. — Victor Hugo

My goal is to act as a faithful interpreter, preserving as much of the original's nuances of meaning as possible without embellishment or omission. Yet a translator must also balance fidelity to the source, aptness of expression, and beauty of style. 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. — Ken Liu

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

If he is weak enough to grow smaller to fit himself to his covering, then it becomes a process of gradual suicide by shrinkage of the soul. — Rabindranath Tagore

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

The best translations are always the ones in the language the author can't read. — Jorge Amado

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience. — Laurence J. Peter

I thought that strange syntax was the language of story books. I didn't realize those were poor translations ... English from Edwardian times. — Sandra Cisneros

The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. — Fidel Castro

All translations are made up" opined Vikram, "Languages are different for a reason. You can't move ideas between them without losing something — G. Willow Wilson

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers. — Edith Hamilton

The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection — C.S. Lewis

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

I guess you never think your enemy is as clever as you are. — Cinda Williams Chima

Form no covetous desire, so that the demon of greediness may not deceive thee, and the treasure of the world may not be tasteless to thee. — Zoroaster

Good translations are one of the vital necessities of our time. — Lucas Leiva

If one could read fluently, confidently, in every known language, one would have no need of translators or translations; one could read Homer on Mondays, Akhmatova on Tuesdays, Swahili poets on Wednesdays, and so on. — Abraham Verghese

Religion, to me, is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need. — Bill Maher

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

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

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

Yes, my grandfather worked with Thomas Edison on the electric car, and he sold electric cars at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. — Al Jardine

The things we do without the fear of failure and the desire for success are the purest acts we'll ever do — Alan Moore

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

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

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

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

The sound of the wind against the sides of the house is exactly like the sound of wolf fur against cardboard. — Jennifer Egan

And of course, the deepest irony about the young being cynical is that they are the ones that need to move, and dance, and trust the most. — Caitlin Moran

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

It would be dreadfully
ironic, I mused, if once I earned a soul, I forgot everything about being fey, including all my memories of her. That sort of ending seemed
appropriately tragic; the smitten fey creature becomes human but forgets why he wanted to in the first place. Old fairy tales loved that sort of irony. — Julie Kagawa

I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is ... In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles. and ripples, and - as I am a Northerner - for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. — Joseph Brodsky

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

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

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