Archive

Quotes

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.

—Thomas Carlyle, 1838

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, 1843

I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

—Albert Camus, 1957

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

—The Qur’an, c. 620

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

—Voltaire, 1764

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

—Marcel Marceau, 1958

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.

—Virginia Woolf, 1899

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915

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

—Karl Kraus, c. 1910

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

—Samuel Johnson, 1780

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

—Voltaire, c. 1732