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

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

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.

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

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 more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.

The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.

I live by good soup, and not on fine language.