Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.
Interpretation
Language and literature connect us to our history and identity.
This quote emphasizes the significance of language and literature as vessels of historical knowledge and personal identity. To understand ourselves fully, we must explore our past, as our stories and the words we use shape our perception of who we are today. The connection to our history through literature anchors us, allowing us to better navigate our present and future.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of preserving cultural literature.
All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.
The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body.
I'm not interested in using my father's death as some touch point for why I've become an actor - it's grossly opportunistic.
It is life, more than death, that has no limits.
I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an Atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.
I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream.
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