Top Translation Quotes
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert Frost
Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
Leonard Cohen
Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.
Robert Morgan
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Jonathan Miller
Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
John Denham 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan 
Jonathan Lethem 
John Millington Synge 
Story Musgrave 
George Borrow 
Leonardo Sciascia 
Cornelia Funke All Translation Quotes
Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
Leonard Cohen 
60% of people like this quote
Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.
Robert Morgan
58% of people like this quote
What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That's what their substance is.
Jonathan Miller
58% of people like this quote
Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
58% of people like this quote
The Japanese version comes with a translation, but that's different from the lyrics, so people could look things up and find a translation of their own if they're interested.
Utada Hikaru
58% of people like this quote
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.
Henry Ellis
57% of people like this quote
True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
57% of people like this quote
The best thing on translation was said by Cervantes: translation is the other side of a tapestry.
Leonardo Sciascia
56% of people like this quote
Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.
Jonathan Lethem
55% of people like this quote
Popular Translation Authors
Robert FrostKarl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelRobert MorganCyril ConnollyHenry EllisBrian FerneyhoughMarilyn HackerRecep Tayyip ErdoganUtada HikaruEdward SapirJorge Luis BorgesJonathan LethemCornelia FunkeGuillermo del ToroJonathan Miller
Boris PasternakJung ChangSibel EdmondsStory MusgraveUmberto EcoJohn Millington SyngeYevgeny YevtushenkoLeonard CohenThomas Bailey AldrichRene MagritteGilbert MurrayGeorge BorrowJohn DenhamLeonardo Sciascia
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