Archive

Quotes

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

—Arthur Miller, 1961

I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

—Albert Camus, 1957

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

—Karl Kraus, c. 1910

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.

—Virginia Woolf, 1899

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

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821

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

—The Qur’an, c. 620

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

—Galen, c. 175

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

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

—Tertullian, c. 217

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

—Thomas Hardy, 1874

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

It is a luxury to be understood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831