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

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

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

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.

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.

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

It is a luxury to be understood.

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

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. 

Language is the archives of history.

Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?

Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.

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.