Vocabulary quotes

Vocabulary

410 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Vocabulary quotes (page 5 of 21)

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Tony Robbins Author, Life Coach
Vocabulary

"People with an impoverished vocabulary live an impoverished emotional life; people with rich vocabularies have a multihued palette of colors with which to paint their experience, not only for others, but for themselves as well."

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Seth Musician
Vocabulary

"For at no time are any events predestined. There should be no such word in your vocabulary, for with every moment you change, and every heartbeat is an action, and every action changes every other action."

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Steve Martin Comedian, Actor, Writer
Vocabulary

"I have no fear, no fear at all. I wake up, and I have no fear. I go to bed without fear. Fear, fear, fear, fear. Yes, 'fear' is a word that is not in my vocabulary."

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Susan Sontag Essayist, Critic, Activist
Vocabulary

"In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all."

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Naomi Wallace Playwright, Screenwriter
Vocabulary

"I'm interested in the way that the language of labor has been suppressed in our culture, the way it has disappeared from our vocabulary and is never heard on stage. . . . I'm better at writing than I am at organizing [political action]. SLAUGHTER CITY is my small contribution. If it gives people a voice it is worth something. So often we forget what we are no longer hearing."

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Zola Jesus Musician, singer-songwriter
Vocabulary

"True expression is hard when performing opera. The problem is that opera relies on the dramatic context of the piece. It can be interpreted and represented, but there are guidelines; there is a vocabulary within the pieces that you must know objectively and reflect."

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Hannah Arendt Philosopher, Political Theorist
Vocabulary

"Plurality of languages: [...] It is crucial 1. that there are many languages and that they differ not only in vocabulary, but also in grammar, and so in mode of thought and 2. that all languages are learnable."

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Marcel Proust Novelist
Vocabulary

"La me decine a fait quelques petits progre' s dans ses connaissances depuis Molie' re, mais aucun dans son vocabulaire. Medicine has made a few, small advances in knowledge since Molie' r e, but none in its vocabulary."

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Keith Fullerton Whitman Musician, Producer
Vocabulary

"I see someone play, or I listen to a record, and I think, "How did they make that sound?' It's not emulation; it's more building a vocabulary that can be called up at a moment's notice."

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Kenneth E. Iverson Computer Scientist
Vocabulary

"The utility of a language as a tool of thought increases with the range of topics it can treat, but decreases with the amount of vocabulary and the complexity of grammatical rules which the user must keep in mind. Economy of notation is therefore important."

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Judith Butler Philosopher, Gender Theorist
Vocabulary

"For instance, when "Gender trouble " is translated into Japanese, it produces a problem of vocabulary and a way of thinking about a quality for instance that is somewhat controversial in academic circles and also outside of the academy. In other places, "Gender trouble" is old."

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Judith Butler Philosopher, Gender Theorist
Vocabulary

"I know that some subjective experiences of sex are very firm and fundamental, even unchangeable. They can be so firm and unchanging that we call them "innate". But given that we report on such a sense of self within a social world, a world in which we are trying to use language to express what we feel, it is unclear what language does that most effectively. I understand that "innate" is a word that conveys the sense of something hired-wired and constitutive. I suppose I would be inclined to wonder whether other vocabularies might do the job equally well."

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Maya Beiser Cellist, Composer
Vocabulary

"I decided that I wanted to explore all kinds of music with my cello, not just the Western classical tradition. I just wanted to try and expand my vocabulary and bring that different kind of music to my audience."

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Milan Kundera Writer
Vocabulary

"Perhaps if they had stayed together longer, Sabina and Franz would have begun to understand the words they used. Gradually, timorously, their vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one would have begun to intersect with the music of the other. But it was too late now."

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