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.

Language is the archives of history.

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.

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 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. 

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

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

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

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

Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

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.