Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?
—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BCQuotes
I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCIt is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874Information 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.
—Jean Baudrillard, c. 1987Only 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, 1910I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
—Samuel Johnson, 1773Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1821The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175Methinks 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, 1899Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCThe 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.
—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.
—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732