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.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840Quotes
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.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCAnyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
—Bertrand Russell, 1961What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
—Robert Burton, 1621Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.
—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.
—Tertullian, c. 217Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BC