The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them. 

Words pay no debts.

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.

I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

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

Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

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.

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.