Translating Quotes

“Overly literal translations, far from being faithful, actually distort meaning by obscuring sense.”
― Ken Liu, The Three-Body Problem

“Translation is not a matter of words only; it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.”
― Anthony Burgess

“Translator's Note: When the violin repeats what the piano has just played, it cannot make the same sounds and it can only approximate the same chords. It can, however, make recognizably the same "music", the same air. But it can do so only when it is as faithful to the self-logic of the violin as it is to the self-logic of the piano.”
― John Ciardi, Inferno

“Every man who knows anything of languages, knows that it is impossible to translate from one language into another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“We are told that in translation there is no such thing as equivalence. Many times the translator reaches a fork in the translating road where they must make a choice in the interpretation of a word. And each time they make one of these choices, they are taken further from the truth. But what we aren’t told is that this isn’t a shortcoming of translation; it’s a shortcoming of language itself. As soon as we try to put reality into words, we limit it. Words are not reality, they are the cause of reality, and thus reality is always more. Writers aren't alchemists who transmute words into the aurous essence of the human experience. No, they are glassmakers. They create a work of art that enables us to see inside to help us understand. And if they are really good, we can see our own reflections staring back at us.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“El grande Homero no escribió en latín, porque era griego, ni Virgilio no escribió en griego, porque era latino. En resolución, todos los poetas antiguos escribieron en la lengua que mamaron en la leche, y no fueron a buscar las extranjeras para declarar la alteza de sus conceptos; y siendo esto así, razón sería se extendiese esta costumbre por todas las naciones, y que no se desestimase el poeta alemán porque escribe en su lengua, ni el castellano, ni aun el vizcaíno, que escribe en la suya.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Уви, този „дивен руски език“, който ми се струваше, че все ме очаква някъде, цъфти като вярна пролет зад залостена здраво врата, за която от толкова години съм пазил ключа, се оказа несъществуващ и зад тази врата няма нищо освен овъглени пънове и есенна безнадеждна далнина, а ключът в ръката ми прилича по-скоро на шперц. (...) Движенията на тялото, гримасите, пейзажите, морните, дървета, ароматите, дъждовете, стапящите се и преливащите се оттенъци на природата, всичко нежно-човешко (колкото и да е чудно!), а също и всичко мъжкарско, грубо, сочно-цинично излиза на руски не по-зле, ако не и по-добре, отколкото на английски; но толкова присъщите на английския изтънчени недомлъвки, поезията на мисълта, мигновената искра между съвсем отвлечените понятия, ройването на едносрични епитети, всичко това, а също и всичко, що се отнася до техниката, модите, спорта, естествените науки и противоестествените страсти — на руски изглежда дървено, многословно и често отвратително в смисъл на стил и ритъм. Този разнобой отразява основната разлика в историческо отношение между зеления руски литературен език и зрелия като разпукнала се смокиня английски: между гениалния, но още недостатъчно образован, а понякога доста лишен от вкус младеж и мастития гений, който съчетава запасите от пъстро знание с пълната свобода на духа. Свободата на духа! Цялото дихание на човечеството се вмества в това съчетание от думи.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“Me parece que el traducir de una lengua en otra, como no sea de las reinas de las lenguas, griega y latina, es como quien mira los tapices flamencos por el revés; que aunque se ven las figuras, son llenas de hilos que las escurecen, y no se ven con la lisura y tez de la haz.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“Bien sûr l'homme se transforme en ce qu'il fait, bien sûr. Mais cette ˝vie de substitution˝ constitue-t-elle, dans l'énigme de la vie, ce grand malheur que nous sommes tentés d'y voir ? Ne serait-ce pas l'Ange de Dieu ou Dieu lui-même qui nous guette au coin de la rue, qui nous a abordés un jour sans que nous le reconnaissions ? Et cette vie ne serait-elle pas apres tout la seule vraie ? /
■ Kdybych byl někdy v životě měl ctižádost překladatele, mohl bych být – možná, možná, kdo ví – spokojen. Kdybych byl býval někdy v životě měl ctižádost překladatele… Ale takhle… Samozřejmě že se člověk promění v to, co dělá, samozřejmě. Ale je „náhradní život“ v té nevysvětlitelné záhadě života vůbec vždycky tak velké neštěstí, za jaké je člověk považuje? Není to anděl boží nebo Bůh čekající za rohem, který k nám přistoupil a kterého jsme nepoznali, vlastně on ten pravý? Absolutní odvaha a absolutní pokora nejsou v rozloze jediného života tak neslučitelné věci.
(konec sešitu 34)”
― Jan Zábrana, Celý život

“Translating from #cat is easy - you just ignore everything, then you decide what you want it to have said, thought, or wanted.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“Like everyone who's ever translated this text, I had some fun.”
― Maria Dahvana Headley, Beowulf

“Браться за перевод — значит принять вызов. И если ты любишь язык, то вызов в том заключается прежде всего, чтобы предоставить читателю возможность полакомиться совершенно новым блюдом. Вызов замечательный и сводящий с ума — в буквальном смысле слова.”
― Vladimir Pozner, Parting With Illusions

“When he is dissected after his death," a disrespectful interpreter said of a foreign dignitary, "a million predicates will be found in his stomach: those he swallowed in the past decades without saying them.”
― Kató Lomb

“It is an enormous mistake to assume that what the translator conveys is what the speaker intended, and it is equally foolish to assume that what you intended to say is what will be understood.”
― Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

“If money could talk I’d translate.”
― Vincent James Perrone, Starving Romantic

“The theme of translation has a long history in psychoanalysis. It retains significance as a term that represents three related ideas: a language change, a movement across a psychic boundary, and the transference of an object relationship. Freud's terms Übertragung [transference, transmission] and Ubersetzung [translation] carry all of these connotations, for they both mean bringing something across, or carrying something over. The etymology of the related word 'metaphor' derives from a literal Greek version of the Latin of transference (both meaning 'carrying beyond or across'). Similarly, we can include the related term 'interpretation,' which certainly describes a transfer of meaning or a translation of one set of terms into another. Again the Greek word metaphrase unites these two meanings, and a metaphrastis is a translator. In a similar vein, the Yiddish expression fartaysthn means to translate and to explain (Bloom, 2008).”
― Lewis Kirshner

“English: "Translation is needed even within what mistakenly appears to us like one language."

Česky: „Překládat je potřeba i v rámci toho, co se nám mylně zdá jako jeden jazyk.”
― Sebastián Wortys

“If you simply copy and paste instant translations, you only end up with meaningless and contextless junk, which has no relation to the culture and the people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Better to have no translation, than to have a translation without soul.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“[From interviewee Mac Moss] A number of my teaching staff spoke French, one spoke Spanish, and one, with the aid of an electronic translator, communicated with a group that spoke Yugoslavian. Other than that we got by in English. Perhaps the language of caring spoke for us all.”
― Kevin Tuerff, Channel of Peace: Stranded in Gander on 9/11