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

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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

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

Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?

Language is the archives of history.

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.

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

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

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.

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

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.