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

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.

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 sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

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

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

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

Methinks 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.

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

It is a luxury to be understood.

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.

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.

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