Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.
—The Book of Changes, c. 350 BCQuotes
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. 217Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921What 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, 1621It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.
—Thomas Hardy, 1874The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.
—Galen, c. 175Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
—George Orwell, 1944Language is the archives of history.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
—Bertrand Russell, 1961I live by good soup, and not on fine language.
—Molière, 1672My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961