Archive

Quotes

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

—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BC

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

—Voltaire, 1764

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

—Karl Kraus, c. 1910

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.

—Thomas Carlyle, 1838

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

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

—Marcel Marceau, 1958

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

—John Camden Hotten, 1859

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 a luxury to be understood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831

Language is the archives of history.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

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

—Charles Lamb, 1833

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

—Carl Sandburg, 1959

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921