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.

Words pay no debts.

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.

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

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

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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. 

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.

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.

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