I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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.

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

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.

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.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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.

Only 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.

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?

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