Philology Quotes

“Very often conditions are recorded as observable "under thy fingers" [...] Among such observations it is important to notice that the pulsations of the human heart are observed.”
― James Henry Breasted, The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Vol 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation and Commentary

“It is my conviction that, with the spread of true scientific culture, whatever may be the medium, historical, philological, philosophical, or physical, through which that culture is conveyed, and with its necessary concomitant, a constant elevation of the standard of veracity, the end of the evolution of theology will be like its beginning—it will cease to have any relation to ethics. I suppose that, so long as the human mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its intellectual conceptions. The science of the present day is as full of this particular form of intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of ignorant ages. The difference is that the philosopher who is worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions of reality. So, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find the practice of morality made easier by the use of theological symbols. And unless these are converted from symbols into idols, I do not see that science has anything to say to the practice, except to give an occasional warning of its dangers. But, when such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I think the highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have replaced.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley, The Evolution Of Theology: An Anthropological Study

“Ох, філологіє! Ох, великомученице! Хто тебе не зважувався брати на муки! Кожен, хто пару слів тямить написати, та ще - не дай Боже - якусь чужу мову зна, - уже вважа себе коли не за справжнього лінгвіста, то хоч за таку людину, яка сміє авторитетно вирікати свій суд про філологічні й лінгвістичні справи. Всі інші науки не такі безталанні, не такі беззахисні перед профанами. Ніхто вам не зважиться (бо попросту посоромиться), не бувши спеціялістом, споритися проти астронома, ляпати дурниці проти техніка, плескати нісенітниці проти хіміка; ну, а в філологічних питаннях кожен-кожен забирає голос... і віщає.”
― Ahatanhel Krymsky, Виривки з мемуарів одного старого гріховоди. Вибране

“The basic pleasure in the phonetic elements of a language and in the style of their patterns, and then in a higher dimension, pleasure in the association of these word-forms with meanings, is of fundamental importance. This pleasure is quite distinct from the practical knowledge of a language, and not the same as an analytic understanding of its structure. It is simpler, deeper-rooted, and yet more immediate than the enjoyment of literature. Though it may be allied to some of the elements in the appreciation of verse, it does not need any poets, other than the nameless artists who composed the language. It can be strongly felt in the simple contemplation of a vocabulary, or even in a string of names.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays

“There were the talking squiggles he'd seen in the crashed Globe too - writing, it was called - and it covered every surface, as if in this mass of people a man could be so lonely as to want to speak to the buildings.”
― Peadar Ó Guilín, The Deserter

“In principle, to be sure, the Reformation idea of the universal priesthood of all believers meant that not only the clergy but also the laity, not only the theologian but also the magistrate, had the capacity to read, understand, and apply the teachings of the Bible. Yet one of the contributions of the sacred philology of the biblical humanists to the Reformation was an insistence that, in practice, often contradicted the notion of the universal priesthood: the Bible had to be understood on the basis of the authentic original text, written in Hebrew and Greek which, most of the time, only clergy and theologians could comprehend properly. Thus the scholarly authority of the Reformation clergy replaced the priestly authority of the medieval clergy.”
― Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture

“The world seemed quite willing to accept misunderstood artists, misunderstood thieves, and even peasants who dreamed of royalty. But nobody knew what to do with a misunderstood philologist. Other than run him out of town for bringing the dragons down on them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, I Hate Dragons

“In grammar, as in war, there is strength in numbers.”
― Martin Worthington, Principles of Akkadian Textual Criticism

“We are, in the main, 'word-blind' to Pre-Raphaelite and Decadent verse. This blindness results from a major change in habits of sensibility. Our contemporary sense of the poetic, our often unexamined presumptions about valid or spurious uses of figurative speech have developed from a conscious negation of fin de siécle ideals.”
― George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation

“I get sick thinking about some idiot trying to wheedle insight on my apparatus criticus from my ghost long after I’ve forgotten what it was.”
― Tamsyn Muir, The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex

“[...] a good interpretation makes sense of such an impressive amount of mutually corroborating data that coincidence must be excluded. Such a result cannot be reached without sound practice and good method.”
― Y. Duhoux, A Companion to Linear B: Mycenean Greek Texts and Their World

“That so far the material has been dealt with in a rather subjective way provokes the question whether a means can be found of handling it objectively. [...] This chapter considers the applicability of the statistical tests employed by Wilson and the general problem whether the Linear B data are suited to statistical analysis.”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“If we had enough data then this statistical approach would undoubtedly sort out these things, and a lot of problems are arising precisely because we haven't got enough documents for the statistical approach to be wholly valid. I know you can calculate levels of probability and so forth, but to establish this really clearly we want a lot more information than we have actually got available. This is surely our major problem that we are still at the very limits at which you can use a technique of this sort. - John Chadwick”
― Jennifer K. McArthur, Place-Names in the Knossos Tablets Identification and Location

“– Не смей меня истолковывать! – завизжал, старик. – Понимаешь – и понимай себе, а истолковывать не смей! Понимать, хотя бы отчасти, – дело всех и каждого; истолковывать – дело избранных. Но я тебя не избирал меня истолковывать. Я для этого дела себя избрал. Есть такой принцип: познай себя. А такого принципа, как познай меня, – нету. Между тем познать – это и значит истолковать. Так что отойди от меня в сторону… И там заткнись. А я себя без твоей помощи истолкую.”
― Евгений Клюев, Между двух стульев

“I get sickthinking about some idiot trying to wheedle insight on my apparatus criticus from my ghost long after I’ve forgotten what it was”
― Tamsyn Muir, The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex

“It is not for nothing that one has been a philologist, perhaps one is a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“Manuscripts - at least for Muslims who understand the subject - are to be read as books whose contents are to be known and understood, for that is why they were written, and not to be regarded as enigmatic specimens for critical textual and philological exercises. To them what is in the manuscripts is more important than what is on them, and so they say: Al-'ilmu fi'l-sudur la fi'l-sutur.”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Comments on the Re-Examination of Al-Raniri's Hujjatu'l-Siddiq: A Refutation

“We are being at once wisely aware of our own frivolity if we avoid hitting and whacking and prefer 'striking' and 'smiting'; talk and chat and prefer 'speech' and 'discourse'; well-bred, brilliant, or polite noblemen (visions of snobbery columns in the Press, and fat men on the Riviera) and prefer the 'worthy, brave and courteous men' of long ago.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography

“On language—from the mother tongue came our father’s sins.”
― Anthony Marais

“Ontology recapitulates philology.”
― Ben G. Price

“Ma d'altra parte, il linguista che voglia interpretare un testo oggi deve fare i conti con la frattura che esiste tra l'archeologia e la filologia in America. Il punto di vista filologico, con il suo dotto interesse per i testi come tali, è diventato ostico e incomprensibile per l'archeologia americana moderna, altamente sviluppata scientificamente per quel che riguarda la correlazione logica di prove strettamente materiali, ma la cui popolarità e i cui finanziamenti sono strettamente connessi con interessi estetici o legati alla concretezza della sua materia, i prodotti dell'uomo, in particolare di tipo esotico.”
― Whorf Benjamin Lee 1897-1941, Language, Thought, and Reality; Selected Writings

“Learning Old Irish is like mowing the lawn. … It’s not something you do just once. (p. xxxvi)”
― Warren Cowgill, The Collected Writings of Warren Cowgill

“How will you know if you can speak another language? If you can curse someone on impulse without memorizing, you got the language in your gut. If you can console someone in pain, the language nestles in your heart.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Forget grammar, forget vocabulary, let the language seep into your bloodstream. In a world infested with medal-seeking mules, stand odd, stand ablaze, a drunken pilgrim.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot