I live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672Quotes
Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BCEvery man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
—Jane Austen, 1818The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.
—Plato, c. 375 BCThe gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.
—Winston Churchill, 1943Language 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, 1949A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961We 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.
—John Locke, 1690Words pay no debts.
—William Shakespeare, 1601It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?
—Voltaire, c. 1732Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1817I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
—Xenocrates, c. 350 BCEvery 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