authors

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

quotes by topic Grammar

" Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language "

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language , Thought , Reality , Grammar , Harmony

" Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning. "

Oliver Goldsmith

Liquor , Learning , Nonsense , Grammar

" Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‚ÄúMore people died‚Äù don‚Äôt say ‚ÄúMortality rose. "

Death , Grammar

" It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters. "

Humor , Grammar

" Cynthia had been on friendly terms with an eccentric librarian called Porlock who in the last years of his dusty life had been engaged in examining old books for miraculous misprints such as the substitution of "1" for the second "h" in the word "hither." Contrary to Cynthia, he cared nothing for the thrill of obscure predictions; all he sought was the freak itself, the chance that mimics choice, the flaw that looks like a flower; and Cynthia, a much more perverse amateur of misshapen or illicitly connected words, puns, logogriphs, and so on, had helped the poor crank to pursue a quest that in the light of the example she cited struck me as statistically insane. ("The Vane Sisters") "

Vladimir Nabokov

Grammar

" Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar. "

Margaret Atwood

Death , Grammar

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language , Thought , Reality , Grammar , Harmony

Oliver Goldsmith

Liquor , Learning , Nonsense , Grammar , Genius