~ J. R. R. Tolkien
My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern themselves with the international language movement would be: “Back Esperanto loyally.”
~ Jules Verne
The key for a common language, lost in the Tower of Babel, can only be found in the use of Esperanto.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Six years ago I received an Esperanto grammar, vocabulary, and articles written in the language. After not more than two hours’ study I was able, if not to write the language, at any rate to read it freely…. I have often noted how men are brought into unfriendly relations merely through material hindrance to mutual comprehension. The learning and spreading of Esperanto is therefore undoubtedly a Christian movement, helping to create the Kingdom of God, which is the chief and only aim of human life.
~ Pope John Paul II
The Holy Father sincerely greets the organisers and participants of the 78th Esperanto Congress and encourages them to continue their most honourable efforts for a world in which understanding and unity reign. At the same time the Holy Father asks you to make this meeting of people from different countries, cultures and denominations, who speak the same language, a witness of that brotherhood which should reign without any form of discrimination among all human beings as members of the great family of the children of God, and which encourages personal and collective compromise in order to build peace in their respective homelands. With these sentiments and asking for God’s protection on the work of the congress and its participants, the Pope gives the desired apostolic blessing.
~ Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!), so that by this additional means the Jews could more easily dominate them!
~ Martin Bormann, the chief of staff of Hitler’s deputy
Because the creation of an international hybrid language contradicts the basic concepts of National Socialism and ultimately can only serve the interests of supranational powers, the Fhrer’s deputy forbids all party members and members of organisations affiliated to the party to belong to all forms of artificial language associations.
~ Stalin
[Esperanto is] the language of spies.
~ L. L. Zamenhof (1905)
In our meeting there are no strong or weak nations, privileged or unfavoured ones, nobody is humiliated, nobody is harassed; we all support one another upon a neutral foundation, we all have the same rights, we all feel ourselves the members of the same nation, like the members of the same family, and for the first time in the history of human race, we -the members of different peoples- are one beside the other not as strangers, not like competitors, but like brothers who do not enforce their language, but who understand one another, trustfully, conceitedly, and we shake our hands with no hypocrisy like strangers, but sincerely, like people. Let’s be fully aware of all the importance of this day, because today among the generous walls of Bologne-sur-Mer have met not French wtih British, nor Russians with Polish, but people with people.
~ L. L. Zamenhof (1906)
We are not so naive as some think of us; we do not believe that a neutral base will turn men into angels, but we do know that evil people will always be evil; but we believe that communication and knowledge based upon a natural tool will prevent at least the great quantity of brutality and crimes which happen not because of ill will, but simply because of lack of knowledge and oppression.
~ Humphrey Tonkin
Ultimately Zamenhof’s language [Esperanto] was and is more than a proposed solution to the language problem: it is an attempt to confront the spirit of inequality, of intolerance, of hatred that is tearing apart our beautiful world.
~ Sylvan Zaft
One Chinese Esperanto speaker described Esperanto as a linguistic handshake. When two people shake hands they both reach out halfway. When two people speak Esperanto they have both made the effort to learn a relatively easy, neutral language instead of one person making the huge effort to learn the other person’s difficult national language and the other person making no effort at all except to correct his/her interlocutor’s errors.
~ Sylvan Zaft
Esperanto is an artificial language like the automobile is an artificial horse.
~ Satir
A lot of people have this impression of [Esperanto] speakers as crazy, naive idealists. We’re people with a desire to learn other cultures.
~ Manuel M Campagna
Esperanto is very popular in Hungary, Estonia, Finland, Japan, China, Vietnam… The current [1995-1998] president of the Universal Esperanto Association is a Korean university professor of Economics. The most attended international meeting in 5000 years of Chinese history was the 1986 Universal Congress of Esperanto in Beijing, being the largest both by the number of delegates and the number of countries represented.
~ Chuck Smith
Would you like to learn the “secret” underground language of the world? There are actually hundreds of thousands of people who speak a language, you have probably never heard. This is the language your mother didn’t tell you about! Esperanto is an easy to learn, totally regular, international language, so we can better understand everyone and their mom.
~ Chuck Smith
La angla estas la mona lingvo, sed Esperanto la bona lingvo.
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