The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.
Elias CanettiRead
There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The beauty of a language is perceived when one understands its cultural significance, and the loss of any language is a profound loss to humanity.
Elias Canetti emphasizes the intrinsic beauty of all languages, suggesting that each one holds unique cultural and emotional value. He expresses a deep emotional response to the thought of languages becoming extinct, highlighting that losing a language is akin to a loss that affects the very essence of humanity and our connection to diverse cultures.
Themes
LanguageBeautyCultureLossEmpathy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about cultural diversity, one might quote Canetti to emphasize the importance of preserving endangered languages.
More from Elias Canetti
All quotes →The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.
Elias CanettiRead
People's fates are simplified by their names.
Elias CanettiRead
Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
Elias CanettiRead
The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
Elias CanettiRead
Travelling, one accepts everything; indignation stays at home. One looks, one listens, one is roused to enthusiasm by the most dreadful things because they are new. Good travellers are heartless.
Elias CanettiRead
Similar quotes
God has allowed some magical reversal to occur, so that you see the scorpion pit as an object of desire, and all the beautiful expanse around it as dangerous and swarming with snakes.
RumiRead
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Marilynne RobinsonRead
The FHA literally drew up the redlining map and then basically distributed - I'm sorry, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation actually did it, and then distributed to banks who used that as policy to determine how they would lend and who they would lend to. The racism in the system was pervasive and total.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.
AdyashantiRead
The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.
Emile DurkheimRead
How can finite man commune with an infinite God? To both Christians and Jews, God himself has made that possible by irrupting into the temporal world. To Christians, God became man in the Incarnation; to Jews, the God that spoke out of the fire on Mount Sinai gave his Torah.
Meir SoloveichikRead