Quote#Wisdom
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore.…
Quote byJohn Wesley Powell · 1834–1902
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Canyons of the Colorada (1895), Ch. 11 (August 13, 1869).
English (original)
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are bandied about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber and the jests are ghastly.
— John Wesley Powell
More from John Wesley Powell
Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words.
Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs; in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic.
Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer.
The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language.
The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.
In Seneca the north is "the sun never goes there," and this sentence may be used as adjective or noun; in such cases noun, adjective, verb, and adverb are found as one vocable or word, and the four parts of speech are undifferentiated.