A Quote by Georg C. Lichtenberg

The rules of grammar are mere human statutes, which is why when he speaks out of the possessed the Devil himself speaks bad Latin.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

Quote Topics

Bad Devil Grammar Himself Human Latin Mere Out Possessed Rules Speaks Speaks Out Statutes Which Why

Quote Author

Georg C. Lichtenberg
German - Scientist
July 1, 1742 - February 24, 1799

We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?

Carl Sagan

Quite naturally, scholars assumed that Latin grammar was not merely Latin grammar, but that it was grammar itself. They borrowed it and made the most of it.

Charlton Laird

Shakespeare speaks for the human heart but Dickens speaks for the social man and for injustices.

Simon Callow

He who speaks from the lips chatters. He who speaks from an empty mind adds confusion to discord. He who speaks from a full mind feeds the minds of men. He who speaks from his heart wins the confidence of mankind. But he who speaks from his soul heals the heartbreaks of a world and feeds the hungry, starving souls of men. He can dry the tears of anguish and pain. He can bring light, for he will carry light.

Annalee Skarin

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

Eldridge Cleaver

Do not applaud me. It is not I who speaks to you, but history which speaks through my mouth. Fustel de

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges

Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

Ellen Hopkins

Meditation speaks. It speaks in silence. It reveals. It reveals to the aspirant that matter and spirit are one, quantity and quality are one, the immanent and the transcendent are one. It reveals that life can never be the mere existence of seventy or eighty years between birth and death, but is, rather, Eternity itself.

Sri Chinmoy

It is the body, subject to the harmony of the steps it is executing, which speaks. And it speaks to the heart in as direct a language as does music.

Natalia Makarova

Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.

Bill Bryson

I loved Latin -- the grammar, the difficult tenses, the history -- but for some reason I was very bad at it, shamefully and blushingly bad at it. ... In moments of stress the embarrassment of how bad I was at Latin -- a subject I loved -- really hit me. It was like being laughed at by someone you desperately loved.

Peter Greenaway

Everything that occurs in the temple is uplifting and ennobling. It speaks of life here and life beyond the grave. It speaks of the importance of the individual as a child of God. It speaks of the importance of the family and the eternity of the marriage relationship.

Gordon B. Hinckley

English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

Bill Bryson

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Desmond Tutu

English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common.

Bill Bryson

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.