"Nothing in a language is less translatable than its modes of understatement."

--

Source : George Steiner (1987). “George Steiner: A Reader”, p.153, Oxford University Press on Demand

George Steiner

#Language Quotes #Understatement Quotes

“The importance of fear as a factor in war-making cannot be overlooked, and can hardly be overestimated. Any politician can play on panic when he wishes to stampede a people into war.”
“We cannot expect in the immediate future that all women who seek it will achieve full equality of opportunity. But if women are tostart moving towards that goal, we must believe in ourselves or no one else will believe in us; we must match our aspirations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed.”
“Poetry springs from something deeper; it's beyond intelligence.”
“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”

Source : Dorothy L. Sayers (2012). “Clouds of Witness”, p.292, Open Road Media
“Everybody copied Atari products. So we started messing with them and it was fun. We bought enough chips that we could get them mislabeled. So we bankrupted at least two companies which copied our boards, and bought all the parts but they were the wrong parts, so they're sitting on all this inventory they can't sell because the games don't work.”
“The gods have fled, I know. My sense is the gods have always been essentially absent. I do not believe human beings have played games or sports from the beginning merely to summon or to please or to appease the gods. If anthropologists and historians believe that, it is because they believe whatever they have been able to recover about what humankind told the gods humankind was doing. I believe we have played games, and watched games, to imitate the gods, to become godlike in our worship of eachother and, through those moments of transmutation, to know for an instant what the gods know.”
“I like old fashioned things. We have these old wine buckets at the restaurant and none of them match.”
“Dre couldn't have given me those words to write, and he couldn't have given me that voice to sing. I couldn't have given him that musical talent or the ability that he has. What we made came from putting things together. I've always said that.”

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