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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Quote of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg - Is it not peculiar that a...


Biography - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:

German physicist, satirist and Anglophile.
Born: 1742 - Died: 1799
Period:
18th century
Place of birth: Germany
Germany

Is it not peculiar that a literal translation is almost always a terrible one? And yet, anything can be translated well. One sees here what it really means to understand fully a language; it means to understand fully the people who speak it.


Note 

Note






Translation

Translation

(French, German)



French
N'est-ce pas singulier qu'une traduction littérale soit presque toujours mauvaise? Et pourtant tout peut se bien traduire. On voit par là quelle est la portée de ces mots : comprendre à fond une langue. Cela veut dire : connaître à fond le peuple qui la parle.

German
Ist es nicht sonderbar, dass eine wörtliche Übersetzung fast immer eine schlechte ist? Und doch lässt sich alles gut übersetzen. Man sieht hieraus, wie viel es sagen will, eine Sprache ganz verstehen; es heißt, das Volk ganz kennen, das sie spricht.




See also 

See also...






Quotes for: to understand


Quotes

Quotes for: to understand


I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions.





Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.





The best means of learning to know oneself is seeking to understand others.





Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see.





The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.





Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.











Quotes for: Language


Quotes

Quotes for: Language


Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our mind by means of our language.





The language of truth is simple.





Language is a source of misunderstanding.





Action is the language of the body and should harmonize with the spirit within.





Language is the house of the truth of Being.





Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.











Quotes

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg also said...


What good is all sunrise, if we do not stand up?





We all err, but everybody errs differently.





He could refract an idea which everyone thought simple into seven others, as the prism does with sunlight, each finer than the other, then gather together a host of others to recreate the white light of the sun, where others merely saw disorder and confusion.





Do not have too artificial an idea of man but judge him naturally. Don't consider him too good or too bad.





Nothing makes one old so quickly as the ever-present thought that one is growing older.






There is something in every person's character that cannot be broken — the bony structure of his character.












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