Archive

Quotes

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

Language is the archives of history.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

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

—Charles Lamb, 1833

It is a luxury to be understood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1831

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

—Winston Churchill, 1943

What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.

—Robert Burton, 1621

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

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

—Theodor Adorno, c. 1946

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

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.

—Samuel Johnson, 1780

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.

—The Qur’an, c. 620