Archive

Quotes

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

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

—Arthur Miller, 1961

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

—Charles Lamb, 1833

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

—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BC

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

—Thomas Hardy, 1874

It is a luxury to be understood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831

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

—Voltaire, c. 1732

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. 1987

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

—Galen, c. 175

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.

—Robert Burton, 1621

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

Language is the archives of history.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

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

—Plato, c. 375 BC