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

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

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

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?