Archive

Quotes

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

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

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

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

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

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

—Voltaire, 1764

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946

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

—Molière, 1672

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

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

—Bertrand Russell, 1961

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?

—Alfred Hitchcock, 1962

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

—Plato, c. 375 BC

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

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

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

—George Orwell, 1944