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First of all, you need to accept the fact, that Linguistics has little to nothing to do with Translation Science. It also has little to nothing to do with Literature Science. It is also not about trying to out-mezzofanti everyone and learn as many languages as possible. The EU gives us - for once - a nice definition: "Linguistic Science aims at the analysis of language and the derivation of theories, which may serve to solve current issues in language use, forming the basics for, but not incorporating other disciplines, such as Psychology, Translatorics or Literature Science."

Secondly, Linguistics require a certain command of other Languages than English, because many texts are simply not available in English. If you decide to go for synchronous linguistics, wielding a reasonable command of English, Latin, German and French or Russian will over time be almost inevitable. If you decide to go for diachronous linguistics, Latin, Old Greek, Sanskrit and Arabic will haunt you to the grave and beyond.

That said, I thought I'd compile you a little list of introductory books and classics that may serve as a starter; after browsing some of them you'll quickly see whether Linguistics is for you or not.

Radford, Andrew, et. al.: Linguistics. An introduction.
A very cheap and easy to read introduction, that mainly concentrates on (generative) grammar theory.

Saussure, Ferdinand de: Cours de linguistique générale.
In this book, de Saussure's basics of structuralism and maybe modern Linguistics itself were recorded after his death by his students. A must.

Ladefoged, Peter: A course in phonetics.
This book is one of the standard works on phonetics. Very easy to grasp, yet quite thorough. Absolutely recommended; if you decide to go for Linguistics, this book can save you tons of headache.

Bloomfield, Leonard: Language.
Bloomfield was the founding father of american structuralism. This book, although outdated (1930s), represents the roots of american structuralism.

Levinson, Stephen C.: Pragmatics.
One of the better starters in Pragmatics, it gives a nice vista of the scientific approach to natural language use within specific contexts.

Bühler, Karl: Sprachtheorie.
His approaches to lingopsychology and language philosophy continue to have an impact on science up to the current day.

Volli, Ugo: Semiotics.
Definitely a better way to start out than with the less scientific (albeit more entertaining) Frutiger, Volli concentrates on explaining the basic terms of semiotics.

Roberts, Ian: Comparative Syntax.
This book is the bomb. Never again will you find such a comprehensive approach to the basics of syntax so understandably written.

Matthews, Peter H.: Linguistics. A very short introduction.
As the title suggests, this is very short. It's a very light read, but also not very comprehensive.

Fodor, Jerry, A.: The Modularity of Mind.
A brief, and entertaining introduction to nowadays' cognitive theory, albeit at times stark raving mad.