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.

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

Words pay no debts.

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

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

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

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 a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

It is a luxury to be understood.

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

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.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.