With languages, you can move from one social situation to another. With languages, you are at home anywhere.
Interpretation
Language allows individuals to adapt and feel comfortable in diverse social settings.
This quote emphasizes the profound impact of language on social interactions and identity. It suggests that being multilingual empowers a person to navigate various social environments, facilitating connections and fostering a sense of belonging regardless of geographical boundaries. The idea is that language not only serves as a tool for communication but also as a bridge to understanding and integrating into different cultures.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of language in global citizenship.
No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the President and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
Although I'm not actually embarrassed by this, I tend not to read books that have awesome movies made from them, regardless of how well or badly the movie represented the actual written story.
Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds.
I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.