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.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

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

It is a luxury to be understood.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

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

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