A friend of mine used a quote from Wordsworth (he thinks?) the other night and I am trying to find its source.

The quote is-"langauge is not the address but the incarnation of thought"

Any help would be fantastic.

thanks
Bradley

I found it quoted with one (important) difference:


“Language is not the DRESS but the incarnation of thought.” William Wordsworth

And look what else I found while searching:


"Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated."

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
from NATURE (1836)

Awright, which one of you blokes ripped that off from the other?! You have ten seconds to raise your hand, or the whole class stays after.

Do you remember where it was that you saw the quote?

I have 'language is the dress of thought' as Samuel Johnson, in his Lives of the English Poets (1779-81) - in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Presumably that's what they were arguing with. Worsdworth was 1770-1850, and Emerson 1803-82, so either could have said it first. We have Emerson quoted in 1836 - so all we have to do is find a date and source for the Wordsworth quote and the later one gets sent to see the Headmaster!