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Linguists: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other.— DE LA BRUYÈRE — The Characters or

Manners of the Present Age. Ch. XII. Besides 't is known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak; That Latin was no more difficile Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.— BUTLER — Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 51.

I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, Which melts like kisses from a female mouth.— BYRON — Beppo. St. 44.

He Greek and Latin speaks with greater ease Than hogs eat acorns, and tame pigeons peas.— CRANFIELD — Panegyric on Tom Coriate.

Lash'd into Latin by the tingling rod.— GAY — The Birth of the Squire. L. 46.

Small Latin, and less Greek.— BEN JONSON — To the Memory of

Shakespeare. Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. II. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 62.

By your own report A linguist.— Shakespeare — Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 56.

O! good my lord, no Latin; I'm not such a truant since my coming, As not to know the language I have liv'd in.— Shakespeare — Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 42.

Speaks three or four languages word for word without a book.— Shakespeare — Twelfth Night. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 28.

This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist.— Shakespeare — All's Well that Ends Well. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 262.

Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!— R. B. SHERIDAN — The Critic. Act I. Sc. 2.