What 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.

It is a luxury to be understood.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

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

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. 

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

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

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.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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.