Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

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

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

I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.

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

It is a luxury to be understood.

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

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.

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

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

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

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.