My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910Quotes
Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.
—Jean Baudrillard, c. 1987Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.
—Martin Heidegger, 1949God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.
—The Qur’an, c. 620Words pay no debts.
—William Shakespeare, 1601In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
—Voltaire, 1764Methinks 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, 1899Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCI live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
—Bertrand Russell, 1961Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1838Only 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.
—E.M. Forster, 1910