Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes About Language

• Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Travel, Communication, Inspiration

• He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Language, Knows

• Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ignorant, Language, Foreign Language

• Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Funny, Humorous, Math

• He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Inspiration, Learning, Knowing

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2012). “The Goethe Treasury: Selected Prose and Poetry”, p.293, Courier Corporation

• Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Use, Language

• You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Country, Study, Language

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Stuart Blackie (1883). “The Wisdom of Goethe”, Edinburgh, W. Blackwood

• Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen. Spricht man zu ihnen, so übersetzen sie alles in ihre eigene Sprache, und so wird es alsobald etwas ganz anderes. Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchmen. Whenever you say anything or talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and right away it is something completely different.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Men, Say Anything

• If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Language, Foreign Language, Knows

• What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Philosopher, Language

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.222, Ravenio Books

• A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Ignorant, Language

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1853). “Goethe's Opinions on the World, Mankind, Literature, Science, and Art”, p.112

• Go to the place where the thing you wish to know is native; your best teacher is there. Where the thing you wish to know is so dominant that you must breathe its very atmosphere, there teaching is moat thorough, and learning is most easy. You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy boat among miners; and so with everything else.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Country, Teacher, Teaching

• All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Believe, Able, Language

• The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Doe, Swallowing, Language

• I curse all negative purism that tells me not to use a word from another language that either expresses something that my own language cannot or does that in a more delicate manner.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Negative, Doe, Use

• When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Tongue, Language, Translate

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