Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes about Language

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

Tongue, Language, Translate

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

Language, Foreign Language, Knows

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

Ignorant, Language, Foreign Language

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

Believe, Able, Language

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

Thinking, Philosopher, Language

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

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

Doe, Swallowing, Language

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

Doe, Language, Knows

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

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.

Country, Study, Language

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

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

Men, Ignorant, Language

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