Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann WolfgangGoethetə/; German: ; 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 August 1749
CountryGermany
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different
A man who is ignorant of foreign languages is also ignorant of his own language.
You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.
Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.
He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
What must the English and French think of the language of our philosophers when we Germans do not understand it ourselves?
If you don't know foreign languages, you don't know anything about your own.
The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.
Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen.He who is ignorant of foreign languages, knows not his own.
All of us, just because we are able to talk, also believe we are able to talk about language.
When translating one must proceed up to the intranslatable; only then one becomes aware of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.
He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.
When all is said the greatest action is to limit and isolate one's self.