Quotes on Translation and Translators.
January 15th, 2008- Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Anthony Burgess
- Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
Friedrich Schleiermacher
- Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
- Translation is at best an echo.
George Borrow
- The original is unfaithful to the translation.
Jorge Luis Borges
- Translation quality assessment proceeds according to the lordly, completely unexplained, whimsy of “It doesn’t sound right”.
Peter Fawcett
- Translators live off the differences between languages, all the while working toward eliminating them.
Edmond Cary
- Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.
Yevgeny Yevtoushenko
- Many critics, no defenders,
translators have but two regrets:
when we hit, no one remembers,
when we miss, no one forgets.
Anonymous author