“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

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“For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 43, this has often been quoted as simply: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“I kept looking at the flowers in a vase near me: lavender sweet peas, fragile winged and yet so still, so perfectly poised, apart, and complete. They are self-sufficient, a world in themselves, a whole — perfect. Is that then, perfection? Is what those sweet peas had what I have, occasionally in moments like that? But flowers always have it — poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection; I only occasionally, like that moment. For that moment I and the sweet peas had an understanding.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

“To arrive at understanding from being one's true self is called nature, and to arrive at being one's true self from understanding is called culture. He who is his true self has thereby understanding, and he who has understanding finds thereby his true self.
Only those who are their absolute true selves in the world can fulfil their own nature; only those who fulfil their own nature can fulfil the nature of others; only those who fulfil the nature of others can fulfil the nature of things; those who fulfil the nature of things are worthy to help Mother Nature in growing and sustaining life; and those who are worthy to help Mother Nature in growing and sustaining life are the equals of heaven and earth.”

Zisi (-481–-402 BC) Chinese philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean, p. 123

“But how can we avoid the use of human language? The… symbol. Only by using a symbolic language not yet usurped by those vague ideas of space, time, continuity which have their origin in intuition and tend to obscure pure reason—only thus may we hope to build mathematics on the solid foundation of logic.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

p, 125
Number: The Language of Science (1930)

“For the happy man prayer is only a jumble of words, until the day when sorrow comes to explain to him the sublime language by means of which he speaks to God.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist

“It is the fallacy of all intellectuals to believe that intellect can grasp life. It cannot, because it works in terms of symbols and language.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966), p. 112
Context: It is the fallacy of all intellectuals to believe that intellect can grasp life. It cannot, because it works in terms of symbols and language. There is another factor involved: consciousness. If the flame of consciousness is low, a symbol has no power to evoke reality, and intellect is helpless.

“But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

IQ84 (2009-2010)
Variant: It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.
Source: 1Q84

“By the logical syntax of a language, we mean the formal theory of the linguistic forms of that language -- the systematic statement of the formal rules which govern it together with the development of the consequences which follow from these rules. A theory, a rule, a definition, or the like is to be called formal when no reference is made in it either to the meaning of the symbols (for examples, the words) or to the sense of the expressions (e. g. the sentences), but simply and solely to the kinds and order of the symbols from which the expressions are constructed.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Source: Logical Syntax of Language, 1934/1937, p. 1

“The earlier views, those of Hobbes or Locke for instance, saw language as an instrument, and understood meaning in terms of designation. Discovering the meaning of words is finding what ideas or things they stood for. … By contrast, a hermeneutical view requires a very different conception. If we are partly constituted by our self-understanding, and this in turn can be very different according to the various languages which articulate for us a background of distinctions of worth, then language does not only serve to depict ourselves and the world, it also helps constitute our lives. Certain ways of being, of feeling, of relating to each other are only possible given certain linguistic resources.”

Charles Taylor (1931) Canadian philosopher

Human Agency and Language (Cambridge: 1985), pp. 9-10

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

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Martin Luther King, Jr.658

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