Archive

Quotes

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

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

—Charles Lamb, 1833

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1921

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

—Jane Austen, 1818

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

—Benjamin Franklin, c. 1732

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

—Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, 1858

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

—John Camden Hotten, 1859

Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

—Martin Heidegger, 1949

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1773

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

—Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

—Winston Churchill, 1943

Words pay no debts.

—William Shakespeare, 1601