Susanne Langer Quotes

Man can no more think without words than see without light.

Language comes first. It's not that language grows out of consciousness, if you haven't got language, you can't be conscious.

We think in language. We think in words. Language is the landscape of thought.

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

He who writes badly thinks badly

A man without words is a man without thought.

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

Expression and thought are inextricably linked: crude language permits only crude thinking.

Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.

Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula.

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or understand or explore.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

Words are not brains, you know.

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the universe.

Speech is the mark of humanity. It is the normal terminus of thought.

Speech is the index of the mind.

You need language for thought, and you need language to anticipate death. There is no abstract thought without language and no anticipation. I think the anticipation of death without language would be impossible.

Language is the light of the mind

We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method. The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.

thinking beings have an urge to speak, speaking beings have an urge to think.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

For me, writing is a concentrated form of thinking.

Language expresses people's thinking and it was by a Word that God created the world and preserves it.

Language is a nice way to remember things.