The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

Words pay no debts.

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

Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

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

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.

Language is the archives of history.

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.

The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

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.