Words pay no debts.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.

Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.

Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.