Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.

Aside from mastery in the fine arts, success in learning anything is the result of genuine interest and amount of energy dedicated to it.

I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina.

Language is present in a piece of work like the sea in a single drop.

Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people.

He who knows other languages feels even closer to his own language.

It is a frequently cited fact that English has two sets of words for farm animals and their corresponding meats. The living animals are expressed with words of Germanic origin-calf (German 'Kalb'), swine (G. 'Schwein'), and ox (G. 'Ochse')-because the servants who guarded them were the conquered Anglo-Saxons. The names of the meats are of Romance origin-veal (French 'veau'), pork (F. 'porc') and beef (F. 'boeuf')-because those who enjoyed them were the conquering Norman masters.