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Translation Quotations

Translation quotations. Find, read, and share Translation quotations. These are the best examples of Translation quotes on PoetrySoup.

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Quote Left Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language. Quote Right
Quote Left God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. Quote Right
Quote Left Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered. Quote Right
Quote Left For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act? Quote Right
Quote Left Wherever a story comes from, whether it is a familiar myth or a private memory, the retelling exemplifies the making of a connection from one pattern to another: a potential translation in which narrative becomes parable and the once upon a time comes to stand for some renascent truth. This approach applies to all the incidents of everyday life: the phrase in the newspaper, the endearing or infuriating game of a toddler, the misunderstanding at the office. Our species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories. Quote Right
Quote Left The original is unfaithful to the translation. Quote Right
Quote Left It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter. Quote Right
Quote Left We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind -- mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality. Quote Right
Quote Left Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat... where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches. Quote Right
Quote Left It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower -- and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel. Quote Right
Quote Left The test of a given phrase would be: Is it worthy to be immortal? To make a beeline for something. That's worthy of being immortal and is immortal in English idiom. I guess I'll split is not going to be immortal and is excludable, therefore excluded. Quote Right
Quote Left As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings. Quote Right
Quote Left The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action. Quote Right
Quote Left Poetry is what gets lost in translation. Quote Right
Quote Left Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift. Quote Right
Quote Left To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one's own style and creatively adjust this to one's author. Quote Right
Quote Left Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life, it is life itself. Quote Right
Quote Left I am a jelly doughnut Quote Right
Quote Left Poetry is what gets lost in translation Quote Right
Quote Left There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers. Quote Right
Quote Left Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information -- hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. Quote Right
Quote Left Poetry is what gets lost in translation. Poetry Quote Right
Quote Left Nor ought a genius less than his that writ attempt translation. Quote Right
Quote Left The birth of thought in the depths of the spirit, the shaping and ordering of it into periods, the translation into signs, and above all the transference of it from one spirit to another, the communication that is, if only for an instant, the meeting of two beings, with the unforeseeable consequences that such a meeting always causes, is in fact a miracle; except that the moment one stops to think about it one can't even write a letter. Quote Right
Quote Left And after I started working for the Bureau, most of my translation duties included translations of documents and investigations that actually started way before 9/11. Quote Right
Quote Left The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry. Quote Right
Quote Left I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable -- any real insight or broad human sentiment. Quote Right
Quote Left For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act Quote Right
Quote Left What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best. Quote Right
Quote Left il faut laisser du temps au temps
(you have to give time time - approximate translation)
Quote Right
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Member Quotes About Translation

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Quote Left It is an impossibility to expect revival with a new revised standard or New word translation Bible, Real Revival have always been by the authorized version of the Bible Quote Right
Quote Left The sands of time move in and out with the tide, to revisit other shores, some over and over again, perpetuating lessons, rebuilding sandcastles, and bringing messages, like the whispering ocean voice carrying secrets from seashells, the notes written in ancient languages in glass containers for translation. Quote Right
Quote Left How long will you live by eating someone else’s leftovers? Find your own way, don’t live on regurgitated words! —Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords/tags: life, words, Hindi) Quote Right
Quote Left When you were born, you wept while the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world weeps while you rejoice. —Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords/tags: birth, death, world, laughter, rejoice, weep, weeping, cry, crying) Quote Right
Quote Left Keep the slanderer near you, build him a hut near your house. For, when you lack soap and water, he will scour you clean. —Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords/tags: home, water, Hindi) Quote Right
Quote Left Without looking into our hearts, how can we find Paradise? —Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords/tags: heart, hearts, paradise, sight, seeing, senses, vision) Quote Right
Quote Left Certainly, saints, the world’s insane: If I tell the truth they attack me, if I lie they believe me. —Kabir Das, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords/tags: truth, trust, lies, faith, belief, world) Quote Right
Quote Left Water reforms, although we slice it with our swords; Sorrow returns, although we drown it with our wine. ('A Toast to Uncle Yun' by Li Bai, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch) Keywords/Tags: water, wine, sorrow, swords, Li Bai, Uncle Yun Quote Right
Quote Left The spring breeze knows partings are bitter; The willow twig knows it will never be green again. ('Lines from Laolao Ting Pavilion' by Li Bai, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch) Keywords/Tags: spring, green, part, parting, partings, tree, twig Quote Right
Quote Left Truths are more likely discovered by one man than by nations.—Rene Descartes, translation by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
Quote Left Elevate your words, not their volume. Rain grows flowers, not thunder.—Rumi, translation by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
Quote Left Brief autumn breeze ... she always wanted to pluck the reddest roses —Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This is a haiku Issa wrote after the death of his daughter Sato with the note: “Sato, girl, 35th day, at the grave.” Quote Right
Quote Left Mother: the tenderest word on the world's lips. —Khalil Gibran, loose translation/interpretation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch for Mother's Day 2022 Quote Right
Quote Left God's ultimate masterpiece is a mother's heart. —St. Therese of Lisieux, loose translation/interpretation/paraphrase by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
Quote Left Help us learn the lessons you have left us here, in every leaf and rock. (Native American Prayer, translation by Michael R. Burch) Quote Right
Quote Left Uninhabited hills ... except that now and again the silence is broken by something like the sound of distant voices as the sun's sinking rays illuminate lichens ... ("Lu Zhai" or "Deer Park" by Wang Wei, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords: hills, silence, voice, nature) Quote Right
Quote Left Ah butterfly, what dreams do you ply with your beautiful wings? —Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch (keywords: nature, dream, dreams, flying) Quote Right
Quote Left The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, translation, troublemaker, thorn, thorny, wisdom, way, path, journey Quote Right
Quote Left Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, translation, past, future, knowledge, wisdom, judgement Quote Right
Quote Left We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, future, memory Quote Right
Quote Left One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, water, river, vacillation, fence-sitting Quote Right
Quote Left Beware the eloquence of the rattlesnake's tail. — Native American saying, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, nature, rattlesnake, eloquence, spoken word, speech Quote Right
Quote Left The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, translation, nature, wisdom, understanding Quote Right
Quote Left Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. —Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords: Native American, nature, power, lightning, thunder, speech, speak, speaking Quote Right
Quote Left What is life? The flash of a firefly. The breath of a winter buffalo. The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset. —Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: Native American, translation, life, nature Quote Right
Quote Left Before you judge a man for his sins be sure to trudge many moons in his moccasins. (Native American proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch, keywords/tags: judgement, anti-bullying, tolerance, understanding, sympathy, words of wisdom) Quote Right
Quote Left Each day I'm plagued by three doles, These gargantuan weights on my soul: First, that I must somehow EXIT this fen. Second, because I cannot know WHEN. And yet it's the third that torments me so, Having no way to know where the HELL I will go! ('Ech day me cometh tydinges thre' loose translation by Michael R. Burch; keywords: doles, dolor, tidings, sorrow, pain, depression, lament) Quote Right
Quote Left While you may not ignore me, I’ll be ashes before you understand me. —Mirza Ghalib, Urdu translation by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
Quote Left My face lights up whenever I see my lover; now she thinks my illness has been cured! —Mirza Ghalib, Urdu translation by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
Quote Left I you want to hear rhetoric flower, hand me the wine decanter. —Mirza Ghalib, Urdu couplet translation by Michael R. Burch Quote Right
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Book: Shattered Sighs