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.

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

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.

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

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

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

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

It is a luxury to be understood.

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