#translations

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. ↗

— Voltaire

#every #gives #indeed #kills #letter

The best translations cannot convey to us the strength and exquisite delicacy of thought in its native garb, and he to whom such books are shut flounders about in outer darkness. ↗

— Edwin Booth

#best #books #cannot #convey #darkness

the best of Cervantes is untranslatable, and this undeniable fact is in itself an incentive [for one and all] to learn Spanish. ↗

— Aubrey F.G. Bell

#cervantes #don-quixote #great-books #man-of-la-mancha #modern-library

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong. ↗

— John Lennon

#buddha #call #god #gone #i

Changing words isn't so hard. Recognizing a particular sound, swapping it for another - that was easy even for your ancestors. Reading what happens in your head and the heads of all the beings around you, now that is difficult. Finding equivalents in one culture for the basic concepts of another - that is really difficult. I say the word vegetable and the translator tells you something like 'edible moss'. So, yes, it's a miracle, but it's a dangerous miracle. It makes you think you understand beasts and you never do. When it comes down to it, you can't even understand your own species. ↗

— Peadar Ó Guilín

#interpreting #lost-in-translation #translations #change

I'm not a best-seller, but through translations, I've accumulated some money. ↗

— Manuel Puig

#i #money #some #through #translations