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

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for 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.

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

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

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

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

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.

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.

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

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. 

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