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.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843Quotes
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.
—Orson Welles, 1953Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCMan 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.
—Tertullian, c. 217It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
—Voltaire, 1764Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732Language is the archives of history.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844It is a luxury to be understood.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BC