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Use the quotes to provide students with a quick access point into language, prompt discussions and debates in your classroom, and introduce a range of influential thinkers.

We've arranged these quotes in a way that relates to our 5 Big Question framework for TOK, which is our favoured way of structuring the course. There are other ways to structure TOK, such as the Classic structure.

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Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

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Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

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Noam Chomsky

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If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

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If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

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Haruki Murakami

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Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

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Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

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Andrzej Wajda

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The Semantic Web isn’t inherently complex. The Semantic Web language, at its heart, is very, very simple. It’s just about the relationships between things.

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The Semantic Web isn’t inherently complex. The Semantic Web language, at its heart, is very, very simple. It’s just about the relationships between things.

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Tim Berners-Lee

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With photography a new language has been created. Now for the first time it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to speak, renew past experiences at will.

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With photography a new language has been created. Now for the first time it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to speak, renew past experiences at will.

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Ernst Haas

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Ever since the arrival of printing – thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people’s minds – people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.

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Ever since the arrival of printing – thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people’s minds – people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language.

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David Crystal

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We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point. Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.

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We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point. Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.

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Vincent Nichols

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To have another language is to possess a second soul.

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To have another language is to possess a second soul.

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Charlemagne

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Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

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Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Language is much closer to film than painting is.

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Language is much closer to film than painting is.

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Sergei Eisenstein

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Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.

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Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.

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John Erskine

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Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.

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Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.

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Martha Graham

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Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

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Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

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Herbie Hancock

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Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

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Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

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Marshall McLuhan

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Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the language equally quickly. So no particular language is in the genes. But what might be in the genes is the ability to acquire language.

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Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the language equally quickly. So no particular language is in the genes. But what might be in the genes is the ability to acquire language.

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Steven Pinker

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In general, every country has the language it deserves.

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In general, every country has the language it deserves.

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Jorge Luis Borges

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Samuel Johnson

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But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

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But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

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George Orwell

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Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.

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Language is a more recent technology. Your body language, your eyes, your energy will come through to your audience before you even start speaking.

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Peter Guber

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Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

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Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

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Karl Kraus

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Language makes infinite use of finite media.

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Language makes infinite use of finite media.

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Wilhelm von Humboldt

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Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

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Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

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Alfred North Whitehead

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Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

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Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

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Benjamin Whorf

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The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

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The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

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You learned the concept ‘pain’ when you learned language.

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You learned the concept ‘pain’ when you learned language.

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Ludwig Wittgenstein

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As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

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As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

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Umberto Eco

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Language, identity and forms of life are the terms in which political demands are shaped and voiced.

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Language, identity and forms of life are the terms in which political demands are shaped and voiced.

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Terry Eagleton

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Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we’re exposed to an infectious world.

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Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we’re exposed to an infectious world.

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Steven Pinker

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Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.

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Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.

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William Golding

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Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and remembering.

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Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and remembering.

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Jane Rule

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Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.

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Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.

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Roland Barthes

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Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it.

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Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it.

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Andrea Dworkin

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One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.

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One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.

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John Berger

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There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.

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There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.

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Henri Bergson

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Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.

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Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.

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Elizabeth Bowen

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Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

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Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

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Elizabeth Bowen

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It is no nation we inhabit, but a language. Make no mistake; our native tongue is our true fatherland.

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It is no nation we inhabit, but a language. Make no mistake; our native tongue is our true fatherland.

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Emil M. Cioran

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The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one’s control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one’s free will.

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The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one’s control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one’s free will.

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Edward Sapir

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Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

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Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

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Noam Chomsky

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Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

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Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

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Claude Levi-Strauss

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History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

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History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

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Theodor Adorno