Translations Quotes - Page 18

• Of all social institutions language is least amenable to initiative. It blends with the life of society, and the latter, inert by nature, is a prime conservative force.

  Ferdinand de Saussure

  Conservative, Language, Initiative

  Ferdinand de Saussure, Wade Baskin (2011). “Course in General Linguistics”, p.74, Columbia University Press

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• Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Suffering, Documentation, Language

  Jorge Luis Borges (1999). “Selected Non-Fictions”, Penguin Group USA

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• The magic gets lost in translation.

  Richard Roeper

  Magic, Lost, Lost In Translation

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• Poireaux vinaigrette aux grains de caviar.” I did a quick translation. “Leeks and fish eggs in vinegar?” He grinned. “It sounds better in French.” Yeah, but did it taste better?

  Karen Chance

  Eggs, Sound, Caviar

  Karen Chance (2011). “Hunt the Moon: A Cassie Palmer Novel”, p.125, Penguin

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• The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Spiritual, Lying, Play

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.7

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• The labours I devoted between 1888 to 1900 to the critical edition, translation and commentary of Kalhana's Rajatarangini, the only true historical text of Sanskrit literature, afforded me ample opportunities of gaining close contact with Sanskrit savants of Kashmir, the land where traditional learning of Hindu India had flourished in old times greatly and survived until recent years.

  Aurel Stein

  Opportunity, Years, Land

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• When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die.

  Randall Jarrell

  Mother, Country, Law

  "The Obscurity of the Poet," Harvard University lecture, published in "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, 1953.

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• Fashion anticipates, and elegance is a state of mind ... a mirror of the time in which we live, a translation of the future, and should never be static.

  Oleg Cassini

  Fashion, Mirrors, Style

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• The word mantra comes from two Sanskrit words man, ("to think") and tra ("tool'). So the literal translation is "a tool of thought." And that's how mantras are used in Buddhist and Hindu practices, as tools that clear your mind of distractions. Because when you focus on repeating that mantra over and over again, soon the noise will die down and all you will hear is your inner voice.

  Russell Simmons

  Buddhist, Men, Thinking

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• One of the others shouted a translation: "The beautiful couple is beautiful.

  John Green

  Beautiful, Couple

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• All explicit knowledge is translated knowledge, and all translation is imperfect.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Imperfect, Explicit

  Patrick Rothfuss (2011). “The Wise Man's Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two”, p.221, Penguin

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• There was the gate next, which she(Liesel)clung to. A gang of tears trudged from her eyes as she held on and refused to go inside. People started to gather on the street, until Rosa Hubermann swore at them, after which they reversed back whence they came. ~A TRANSLATION OF ROSA HUBERMANN’S ANNOUNCEMENT~ ‘What are you arseholes looking at?

  Markus Zusak

  Eye, People, Tears

  Markus Zusak (2014). “Markus Zusak: The Book Thief & I Am the Messenger”, p.35, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• If a little less time was devoted to the translation of letters by Julius Caesar describing Britain 2000 years ago and a little more time was spent on teaching children how to describe (in simple modern English) the method whereby ethylene was converted into polythene in 1933 in the ICI laboratories at Northwich, and to discussing the enormous social changes which have resulted from this discovery, then I believe that we should be training future leaders in this country to face the world of tomorrow far more effectively than we are at the present time.

  Ronald Sydney Nyholm

  Country, Children, Teaching

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• Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.

  Robert Heinecken

  Photography, Differences, World

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• It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.

  John Updike

  Mean, Eye, Space

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• That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.

  Alan Watts

  Rain, Book, Sound

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• The Venus Project is a translation of all religions: The end of war, the end of poverty, the brotherhood of humanity.  If that isn't spiritual, like I've said before, I don't know what is.

  Jacque Fresco

  Spiritual, War, Humanity

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• Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

  Roland Barthes

  Desire, Skins, Language And Power

  "A Lover's Discourse (Talking)". Bok by Roland Barthes, 1977.

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• A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.

  Victor Hugo

  Doe, Movement, March

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.12486, Delphi Classics

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