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.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

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

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

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

I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

Words pay no debts.

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.

The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

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

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

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