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

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

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

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.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

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

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

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.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

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.

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

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.