Archive

Quotes

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.

—Samuel Johnson, 1780

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

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

—E.M. Forster, 1910

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

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

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

—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946

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

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

—Voltaire, 1764

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

—George Orwell, 1944

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.

—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843

Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

—Martin Heidegger, 1949

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601