Egyptian Language Quotes

“But this discourse, expressed in our paternal language, keeps clear the meaning of its words. The very quality of speech and of the Egyptian words have in themselves the energy of the object they speak of.

Therefore, my king, in so far as you have the power (who are all powerful), keep the discourse uninterpreted, lest mysteries of such greatness come to the Greeks, lest the extravagant, flaccid and (as it were) dandified Greek idiom extinguish something stately and concise, the energetic idiom of usage. For the Greeks have empty speeches, O king, that are energetic only in what they demonstrate, and this is the philosophy of the Greeks, an inane foolosophy of speeches. We, by contrast, use not speeches but sounds that are full of action. (Chapter XVI)”
― Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius

“But Anra was far cleverer than I at reading. He loved letters as passionately as I did the outside. For him, they were alive. I remember shim showing me some Egyptian hieroglyphs and telling me that they were all animals and insects. And then he showed me some Egyptian hieratics and demotics and told me those were the same animals in disguise. But Hebrew, he said, was best of all, for each letter was a magic charm.”
― Fritz Leiber, Swords in the Mist