Archive

Quotes

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

—Xenocrates, c. 350 BC

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. 

—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840

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

—Dong Zhongshu, c. 120 BC

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

—Voltaire, 1764

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?

—Alfred Hitchcock, 1962

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

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.

—John Locke, 1690

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

—Arthur Miller, 1961

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.

—Albert Camus, 1957

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

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

—Plato, c. 375 BC

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

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969