W. H. Auden? Karl Kraus? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Philosophers and scientists are still trying to elucidate the interconnectedness of thought and language. The advent of large language models in artificial intelligence has highlighted this conundrum. One literary figure emphasized the primacy of language with the following adage:
Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought.
This statement has been attributed to British-American poet W. H. Auden and Austrian writer Karl Kraus. Yet, I have not seen any solid citations. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match known to QI appeared in 1909 within the Vienna periodical “Die Fackel” (“The Torch”) which published a set of aphorisms crafted by Karl Kraus. The following item was included. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd des Gedankens.
Hear is one possible translation into English:
Language Is the Mother, Not the Handmaiden of Thought.
QI believes this saying should be credited to Karl Kraus. Decades later W. H. Auden also used the expression, but Auden credited Kraus.
Below is an overview tracing the evolution of the saying with variants, attributions, and dates:
1870: Language is the handmaiden of thought
Article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine; author not specified
1907: For speech is the handmaiden of thought, And thought makes the universe to tremble
Written by Francis du Bosque
1909: Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd des Gedankens
(Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought)
Aphorism authored by Karl Kraus
1912: Language is … the mother of thought, not its handmaiden
Credited to Karl Kraus in “The Times Literary Supplement”
1965: Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd, des Gedankens
Epigraph of a poem by W. H. Auden who credited Karl Kraus
1966: Speech is the mistress, not the handmaiden, of thought
Spoken by W. H. Auden during an interview
1970 Jan: Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before
Spoken by W. H. Auden during an interview
1970 Sep: Speech is the mother of thought, not the hand-maiden
Spoken by W. H. Auden during an interview
1988: Language is not the handmaiden but the mother of ideas
Attributed to Karl Kraus
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
In 1870 “Harper’s New Monthly Magazine” published an article which mentioned Latin as a shared language for scholars. The author used the expression “Language is the handmaiden of thought” which was a counterpoint to the saying under examination:2
There has been a great clamor for a universal language. We once had it, in our learned world, in the Latin, in which books were locked up for the scholars and dead to the world. Language is the handmaiden of thought, and to be useful must be obedient to its changes as well as its elemental characteristics.
In 1907 the anarchist journal “Liberty” of New York published a story by author Francis Du Bosque which contained the following song lyrics:3
He is a fool who speaks too much,
And he is not wise who speaks not at all.
Let there be meditation, and then, speech,
For speech is the handmaiden of thought,
And thought makes the universe to tremble.
In 1909 “Die Fackel” (“The Torch”) published a set of aphorisms crafted by Karl Kraus including the following item as mentioned previously:4
Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd des Gedankens.
In 1912 Karl Kraus published the book “Pro Domo et Mundo” (“For Home and the World”) which reprinted the aphorism.5
Also, in 1912 Kraus’s book was reviewed in “The Times Literary Supplement” of London, and the reviewer was sufficiently impressed by the adage that he translated it into English, and included it in the review:6
Here he shows himself a deft and cunning craftsman in words, under whose chisel the marble of language takes often beautiful form. Language is to him the mother-goddess of the future of mankind—“the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.”
In 1965 W. H. Auden published the poetry collection “About the House”. He included a poem which used Kraus’s aphorism as an epigraph. Auden presented the expression in German, and he did not provide a translation:7
A SHORT ODE TO A PHILOLOGIST (1962)
Die Sprache ist die Mutter, nicht die Magd, des Gedankens.
—K. Kraus
In 1966 “The Age” newspaper of Melbourne, Australia published an interview with Auden during which he used a version of the saying without attribution:8
He likes aphorisms, and spurted one at me in his flat American accent: “Speech is the mistress, not the handmaiden, of thought.” His mind leaps and arches like a trout fighting up river; he thrives on metaphor and his fondness for it is catching.
In January 1970 “LIFE” magazine printed an interview with Auden during which he used an extended version of the saying:9
Yet “language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” Some of the new poems express an unmeasurable loss, emotions stretched so far they have broken. But Auden’s forms have slackened with time and his poetry has drifted to the occasional.
In September 1970 “The Guardian” newspaper of London published an interview with Auden during which he used another instance of the saying:10
To a question about the relation between politics and art, Auden answers emphatically: “As a poet – not as a citizen – there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one’s language from corruption. And that is particularly serious now. It’s being so quickly corrupted. ‘Speech is the mother of thought, not the handmaiden.’ When it is corrupted, people lose faith in what they hear, and that leads to violence.”
In 1988 Gale Research published a volume of “Dictionary of Literary Biography” which was focused on “Contemporary German Fiction Writers”. One of the profiles contained an instance of the saying ascribed to Kraus:11
Lettau’s method of getting closer to the truth is an objective, unemotional use of language, following Karl Kraus’s dictum that language is not the handmaiden but the mother of ideas.
In 2025 Professor of Cultural Anthropology Orin Starn published an opinion piece titled “My losing battle against AI cheating” in a student newspaper. Starn emphasized the need for students to learn to write essays:12
Nor is writing just any skill, like making duck decoys or patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. “Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought,” wrote the great mid-20th century poet W. H. Auden. “Words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.”
For me, putting words to page is how I think something through, sometimes arriving at quite different conclusions from where I started.
In conclusion, Karl Kraus deserves credit for creating and publishing this statement in German in 1909. An English version credited to Kraus appeared by 1912 in a London periodical. W. H. Auden used the German statement as an epigraph to one of his poems published in 1965. Subsequently, Auden used English instances during interviews in 1966 and 1970.
Image Notes: Picture of a pear with a caption illustrating the complex relationship between thought and language.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Orin Starn who published a piece in the “Duke Chronicle” on February 27, 2025. Starn attributed the following expression to W. H. Auden: “Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought. Words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” This inspired QI to trace the origin of the expression. This quotation also appeared in a piece on the website of “New York Magazine” on May 7, 2025. Thanks to Craig Good who told QI abut a typo.
- 1909 October 11, Die Fackel (The Torch), Number 288, Jahr (Year) 11, Aphorismen Von Karl Kraus (Aphorisms by Karl Kraus), Start Page 14, Quote Page 14, Printed by Jahoda & Siegel, Vienna, Austria. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1870 September, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume 41, Number 244, SE-QUO-YAH, Start Page 542, Quote Page 546 and 547, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1907 May, Liberty: Not the Daughter But the Mother of Order, Mustapha The Wise by Francis Du Bosque, Start Page 10, Quote Page 32, Published by Benjamin R. Tucker, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1909 October 11, Die Fackel (The Torch), Number 288, Jahr (Year) 11, Aphorismen Von Karl Kraus (Aphorisms by Karl Kraus), Start Page 14, Quote Page 14, Printed by Jahoda & Siegel, Vienna, Austria. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1912 Copyright, Pro Domo et Mundo (For Home and the World) by Karl Kraus, Part IV: Vom Künstler (From the artist), Quote Page 81, Albert Langen, München. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1912 June 20, The Times Literary Supplement, Vox Clamantis by Thomas William Rolleston, (Book review of Pro Domo et Mundo by Karl Kraus), Quote Page 253, Column 2, London, England. (Gale Primary Sources, The Times Literary Supplement) ↩︎
- 1965, About the House by W. H. Auden, Four Occasional Poems, A Short Ode To A Philologist (1962), Start Page 56, Quote Page 56, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1966 January 15, The Age, Section: The Age Literary Review, Where does Auden stand today? by Christopher Burstall, Quote Page 19, Column 1, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1970 January 30, LIFE, Autumn for the ‘Age of Anxiety’ by Webster Schott, Start Page 52, Quote Page 54, Column 3, Time Inc., Chicago, Illinois. (Google Books Full View) ↩︎
- 1970 September 4, The Guardian, Auden’s Eden by Stacy Waddy, Quote Page 10, Column 1, London, England. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1988, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 75: Contemporary German Fiction Writers, Second Series, Section: Richard Lettau by Otto F. Best (University of Maryland) and David S. Roth (University of Maryland), Start page 190, Quote Page 192, A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book: Gale Research Inc., Detroit, Michigan. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- Website: The Duke Chronicle, Article title: My losing battle against AI cheating, Article author: Orin Starn, Date on website: February 27, 2025, Website description: Student newspaper of Duke University. (Accessed dukechronicle.com on May 15, 2025) link ↩︎