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, 1957Quotes
My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
—Voltaire, 1764Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1915Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
—Marcel Marceau, 1958I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
—Samuel Johnson, 1773Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.
—Thomas Carlyle, 1838No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
—Bertrand Russell, 1961How 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.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1843Methinks 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.
—Virginia Woolf, 1899Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.
—Charles Lamb, 1833A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.
—Arthur Miller, 1961God 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